USB flash drives and water.

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2022-12-31 at 14:51 +0000, Ian Bruntlett wrote:
> I have a couple of USB flash drives that *might* have gone in the
> washing machine a few days ago. They seem to be bone dry.

I've got several that have definitely been through the washing machine,
and one or two that got wet other ways. They all still work fine.

My treatment was to put the USB stick in a jar of room-temperature
clean water (filtered in my case - distilled would be even better I
guess), shake it vigorously for a minute, take it out and get as much
water out of it and off it as I can, then put it somewhere warm but not
hot to dry out properly. Then test it in a powered hub, just in case.
And finally use dd to copy the entire thing to a backup.

Clean water is actually pretty harmless to electronics as long as no
electricity is involved, they get dried out promptly and they don't
suffer too much thermal shock (super-rapid cooling).

I've also washed keyboards when they got filled with coffee (and in one
case, jam). Obviously not recommended as a standard procedure, but if a
device is already basically written off, you have nothing to lose.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer