944,028 Members | Top Members by Rank

Ad:
Sep 19th, 2005
0

Katrina Victim

Expand Post »
Kinda sorta. My company had an office in New Orleans, but thankfully none of the equipment I'm in charge of was drenched (no one was hurt either, so I'm not being callous). I do have the issue of recovering it for use elsewhere though. My primary concern is disease. The CDC hasn't been helpful at all about how to clean up a computer so that it can be reused and if someone pulls out a fan, the whole office doesn't get some nasty disease.

Does anyone have any tips on cleaning up electronic hardware that's been sitting around a pool of stagnant, disease-ridden water for three weeks?

p.s. I got to wear a hazmat suit! How many IT pros can say that, eh?
Similar Threads
Reputation Points: 35
Solved Threads: 3
Posting Whiz in Training
Dogtree is offline Offline
232 posts
since May 2005
Sep 20th, 2005
0

Re: Katrina Victim

Dump it.
Send the harddisks to a data recovery company for spooling the data onto tapes or new disks and put those in new computers.

Even if you could clean the old ones, I'd not want to trust my business to them. Corrosion, electronics+water=shorts, etc. etc.
Team Colleague
Reputation Points: 1658
Solved Threads: 331
duckman
jwenting is offline Offline
7,719 posts
since Nov 2004
Sep 22nd, 2005
0

Re: Katrina Victim

Hello,

Working in a IT department at a hospital, I got to wear surgical gear -- we called them Bunny suits, and as my shoes are too big for the foot things, I had to wear hairnets around my shoes.

I agree with jwenting that you should pull the drives and move the data to new ones. While you might be able to clean them up and work with them on your own, I also agree that the computer that has been sitting in grief and misery should just be let go -- it is not as if you could go out there and powerwash the motherboards. Well, you probably could do that, but introduce problems. I am wondering if the RAM would be recoverable though.

Good luck with all this.

Christian
Team Colleague
Reputation Points: 121
Solved Threads: 57
Posting Virtuoso
kc0arf is offline Offline
1,629 posts
since Mar 2004
Sep 25th, 2005
0

Re: Katrina Victim

You could try salvaging the mobo, lan and gfx cards as well. Just make sure you dry them thoroughly. Keep them under a gentle flow of warm(not hot) air for a while.

The hard drives and optical drives are another story though. I agree with the other guys that you ought to replace them.

Good Luck
Team Colleague
Reputation Points: 67
Solved Threads: 45
Finkus Stinkalotus
goldeagle2005 is offline Offline
1,423 posts
since Jun 2005
Sep 26th, 2005
0

Re: Katrina Victim

don't salvage those things! They might look nice and shiny after being disinfected and cleaned with a high pressure hose but would you trust them?
Electricity + water = BIG NONO.
Team Colleague
Reputation Points: 1658
Solved Threads: 331
duckman
jwenting is offline Offline
7,719 posts
since Nov 2004
Sep 28th, 2005
0

Re: Katrina Victim

Hopefully things get normal soon.
Reputation Points: 11
Solved Threads: 3
Junior Poster in Training
chrisranjana is offline Offline
82 posts
since Jul 2005

This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
Message:
Previous Thread in Geeks' Lounge Forum Timeline: Manhattan apartment
Next Thread in Geeks' Lounge Forum Timeline: Parents in court over evolution





About Us | Contact Us | Advertise | Acceptable Use Policy
Forum Index | Build Custom RSS Feed


Follow us on Twitter


© 2011 DaniWeb® LLC