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Flash drive in washing machine

Genecks
in Computer Science

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So, I accidentally left my flash drive in my pants, which I put in the washing machine. I haven't tried to plug in the flash drive, but I've read there are some things I could do. One thing is simply put the flash drive in a gallon of distilled water for a couple of days; afterwards, let it dry out for a few more days.

 

I'm not too sure what to do, but I need that data.

yeah open up the casing and give it a good rinse. then leave it to dry for a few days. that gets all the dissolved chemicals off it. thats what would short it out otherwise.

 

after that it should* work fine.

 

*insane_alien does not offer any guarantee with this statement. any injuries to any persons and/or damage to property incurred by following this advice are not attributable to insane_alien.

  • 1 month later...
yeah open up the casing and give it a good rinse. then leave it to dry for a few days. that gets all the dissolved chemicals off it. thats what would short it out otherwise.

 

after that it should* work fine.

 

*insane_alien does not offer any guarantee with this statement. any injuries to any persons and/or damage to property incurred by following this advice are not attributable to insane_alien.

 

That makes sense, as long as there is no electricity running through the flash drive when you rinse it, it should work fine afterwards. (most people think it would ruin it, but without the electricity...)

i just done this the other day. i used an oven to speed up the drying process. it's working fine.

yeah, rinse and then make sure its dry (very important to be dry). It should work fine. If you want to be really careful test it on a work computer or the like :P

If you want to be really careful test it on a work computer or the like :P

 

why? it can only draw a maximum of 500mA by way of a current limiter in the USB socket. the worst it will do is smoke a little bit.

flash drives have been known (although very rarely) to sometimes fry your motherboard (or parts of it). I'm not 100% sure how it works, but i read about it somewhere, it might have been in tech support alert...

 

*goes to try to find it*

maybe if you dropped one on your mother boardand shorted out some vitals...

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