Might murder my dad

Justintime

Justintime

Justintime

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2006
Posts
8,876
Location
Hoddesdon, London, UK
He put 15 2tb drives in antistatic but unsealed bags in a box outside and every single one is wet with condensation. Left them there for someone to pick up during the day and he thought they'd be ok as they look like 'big metal things'.

Think any will fail? wiped them all down and left them in from of an electric heater.
 
I'm not sure the chamber is airtight. Certainly the ones I took apart had a hole in them, somewhere under the label.

Please do report back with what fraction make it though testing, it would be interesting to know.
 
JonJ678 said:
I'm not sure the chamber is airtight. Certainly the ones I took apart had a hole in them, somewhere under the label.

Please do report back with what fraction make it though testing, it would be interesting to know.
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All made it fine, no SMART errors on any. Cancelled pickup as i'm doing a low level surface scan just to see if any developed any surface defects etc.. so far 10 have passed with no new events. I assumed they'd be fine, only thing that worried me was moisture on the side of the pcb that isn't exposed and any rust etc.. developing but all seem fine and i guess any remnant of moisture would quickly burn off when the hdd heats up.
 
Hard disk sentinel, the full edition can do those things. Reinitalising the disk surface will force any bad sectors to show up and reallocate and any pending reallocations to happen.
For example i had a WD Green 3tb here that had 1 reallocated sector for the longest while with litte data on it, did a low level and ended up with 15 reallocations, drive went for warranty.
 
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I guess you were "lucky" with it being condensation, so pretty pure water.

I'm no expert but I hear it is the contaminants that cause the problems rather than the water itself. In fact I know one guy that specialises in electronics repairs and was once the head of one of the worlds most famous car audio brands, and he's quite happy to wash PCB's down with water :eek:
 
paintguy said:
I guess you were "lucky" with it being condensation, so pretty pure water.

I'm no expert but I hear it is the contaminants that cause the problems rather than the water itself. In fact I know one guy that specialises in electronics repairs and was once the head of one of the worlds most famous car audio brands, and he's quite happy to wash PCB's down with water :eek:
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There isn't really an issue using water. It'd be better if you used dionised and filtered water, to remove any contamninants, but it's not really important.

As long as you dry the compoments off properly before use, all will be well.

 
wazza300 said:
none will fail aslong as they are fully dried out before powering them up
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That is my first thought but people are impatient. Give it a week in an airing cupboard if you want to be safe.
I put an ipod through the wash, left it sitting by my graphics card outflow for a day, worked ok which is surprising


It does depend if it rusts or the pcb oxides in some way, its possible to happen even when not wet if storage conditions are bad. Presuming no reaction and its dried asap, theres a decent chance
 
They might still fail.

The chambers are not airtight, usually have a filtered breathing hole. Dust/particle contaminant tight, yes - not air tight.

If you have moisture ingress corrosion MAY occur over a longer period of time.

Hopefully not, but just putting it out there.
 
Sin_Chase said:
They might still fail.

The chambers are not airtight, usually have a filtered breathing hole. Dust/particle contaminant tight, yes - not air tight.

If you have moisture ingress corrosion MAY occur over a longer period of time.

Hopefully not, but just putting it out there.
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Given they are operating at or above 30C, I'd say the chances of long-term corrosion are pretty minimal.
 
Justintime said:
They all tested ok in the end and are no longer my problem :) Satisfied myself that i wasn't selling any bad product though.
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Whatever.. not my place to say anything I suppose, but seems a little damaging to your reputation.
 
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Scougar said:
Whatever.. not my place to say anything I suppose, but seems a little damaging to your reputation.
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How so? I postponed and tested every drive with a low level test to check for any bad sectors etc.. developing. I could've passed them on without even bothering as the drives were sold as is and were understood to be working but from a salvage and my client understood. Had any drive failed it would be taken out and destroyed as they're OEM and no warranty. Pretty sure if they passed a low level test without an issue they're good as gold as it would've pointed out bad sectors and reallocations and the fact that the drives hit 40-50c when tested would likely evaporate any remaining moisture..if any at all had hit the platters it would've definitely shown up and done more or less immediate damage. I posted the question knowing the answer would likely be none but would have reported back if any had, more as a curiosity piece.
 
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It was only really your comment of "... no longer my problem" that was just flippant. Perhaps the way it came across was wrong? I'm not looking to throw any stones here, I'm just going on what you've said.

The trouble with corrosion is that it can be a slow process, but it might just get there in the end, and the thread title is pretty justified ;-)

Obviously hoping that nothing bad comes of it all, and your pre-checks all proved to be spot-on.

(I've lost some expensive kit in the past to water induced corrosion, so I don't underestimate it, and it's most likely why I'm taking interest in this :-) Please don't take my questions as personal.)
 
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