My two year old destroyed my computer!

[Panthira]

I was sitting on the floor with my laptop yesterday, holding a cup of tea in my hand, but resting it gently on my leg. My DH wanted my 2 yr old to get cleaned up and my two yr old didn't want to, so he barrelled right at me and knocked the cup out of my hand and all over the rug and my laptop. I cleaned it up, but the laptop wouldn't start. We let it dry out for a bit, used a blowdryer on it, and tried again. It'll start but it has an error message and the keyboard isn't responding.
This baby has all of my contacts, my documents, our taxes I've been working on, etc. Thankfully it didn't have our pictures.

Anyone have this happen? Any ideas? Do you think it's a goner? *cry*

[darkpear]

Ugh. I know very little about laptops, but is there any way you can take out the hard drive and put it in another computer so you can get the data off of it?

[mariposita]

that's just terrible! i'll ask my husband tonight if he knows of anything that might work. ds1 broke the usb ports on our computer so now we can't use the mouse.

[Jeanne_L]

hopefully at the very least you should be able to get all the info off it... a computer fixit place should be able to do it for you if you don't know any geeks irl.

[KC in KS]

Yeah, it sounds like the tea shorted out the motherboard. You've probably got a pretty good shot at putting that harddrive in another laptop.

If it were a PC, I'd suggest you have the shop try replacing the motherboard first, but in laptops it's often cheaper to replace the whole package. You might check local pricing, though.

[Geofizz]

My last laptop got 4 oz of breastmilk in it once.

Even if the board is toast, the data on the drive should be ok. The hard drive is sealed and generally won't be damaged by just a little liquid.

I'd recommend first opening up the computer (often by removing the keyboard) and trying to dry out everything you can see. If you take a board out, take a picture of each step of disassembly so you remember how to put everything back. Use "dust it" stuff from an office supply store to get everything really dry. Reassemble, cross your finges and toes and try again.

If that doesn't work, you should still be able to connect the computer as a slave to another to get the data off the hard drive.

[Panthira]

Thanks, I'm pretty sure it's the motherboard and it's dead. I can slave the harddrive to retrieve the data. I don't know much about laptops. I was a computer tech in another lifetime, and can do anything with a desktop, but I never worked with laptops.
I'll try taking the keyboard out but it doesn't look easy.

[DreamsInDigital]

Oftentimes computer repair shops have data recovery services. I have never used it but I've heard it works. Might be $$ though.

[aisraeltax]

sorry to hear that. something happened to my keyboard several months ago and i have to use a wireless keyboard now. i hate it but i dont want to put my computer in the shop.
i dont know if tha woudl work for you or not but the wireless is a logitech and i got mine at wally world (i know...but i was desperate and they were 1/2 price of everywhere else).