Is this too ambitious in repairing my laptop

richwhit

Hi guys,

Advice please from another not v.techy guy.

I have a laptop - a Toshiba Satellite L350 - it's a few years old but does me just fine - i.e; lets me browse the web, email and i tunes.

I had some great advice on here before which helped me repair my daughters laptop and am hoping for the same as my Toshiba has recently had a glass of Ribena (!) spilt over it and whilst the power light comes on it's simply not powering up.

My options are I guess send it off to get repaired but I'm pretty pessimissitic whether it can be as I'm guessing computer motherboards don't particularly like blackcurrant juice or alternatively binning it and buying a new computer. My biggest concern is however is that the laptop has all the family photos, etc; on it (yes I know I'm an idiot for not backing up!!)

Sorry having a quick browse on eBay I'm thinking could I buy exactly the same 'used' Toshiba which is working and just put my harddrive into it??? Would doing this simply my my computers brains(i.e; files, programs, email, etc:) into a what is essentailly a new computers body??

I'm sure it's not as simple as this but just thought I'd ask and appreciate anyones advice as to what they would do to try to get meback with a laptop.

Many thanks in advance,

Rich

DCFC79

You could remove the hard drive and use it as an external drive with a caddy of correct size. Icould be wrong but your idea might not work.

closed

remove the hard disk, put it in a £3 usb disk caddy, copy the files off to another machine, leave them on the new hard disk, and burn a copy to dvd. There are 2 types of disk, pata (older), and sata (newer), you need the correct caddy for your type - google to see the difference in connectors

sata

http://www.amazon.co.uk/drive-Enclosure-laptop-Caddy-Laptop/dp/B003RIL0EM/ref=pd_cp_ce_0

this is pata

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hard-Drive-Caddy-Case-Enclosure/dp/B003MVW2SM/ref=pd_sim_computers_6/280-5117728-1323849



backup all your machines with this to an external portable drive, available for £30 upwards, and create the macrium reflect cd, then you can recover from any future problem, virus, ribena, windows crash, disk corruption

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

strip the old machine, remove battery and power, remove keyboard carefully (the ribbon cable is easily damaged)

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-L355D/laptop-disassembly-1.htm

and mop up all the ribena with a damp (not soaking wet) cloth with water or isopropyl alcohol, leave to dry thoroughly (days), then power on with battery.

if you have future spillages, remove power and battery and clean straight away

if the machine is beyond repair, and the drive works, you could use it for backup (with the caddy)

Fifer

closed wrote: »

remove the hard disk, put it in a £3 usb disk caddy, copy the files off to another machine, leave them on the new hard disk, and burn a copy to dvd

backup all your machines with this to an external portable drive, available for £30 upwards, and create the macrium reflect cd, then you can recover from any future problem, virus, ribena, windows crash, disk corruption

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

strip the old machine, remove battery and power, remove keyboard carefully.

and mop up all the ribena with water or isopropyl alcohol, leave to dry thoroughly (days), then power on with battery.

Just to add to the (excellent) advice above, if using water, preferrably use de-ionised water. There is a risk that the ribena may have gotten onto the drive PCB too, but let's be optimistic and hope not.

richwhit

Really grateful gyys for the advices. So giving the laptop a good clean is probably the first thing I should do - as per your instructions.

Will give that a try and see how we get on.

Thanks again, rich

closed

I'd start by getting your data off.

Fifer

closed wrote: »

I'd start by getting your data off.

Although if the OP has to buy a caddy and wait for delivery, I'd remove the drive then start cleaning up the motherboard now. Remove the battery before you start and don't try to power up for at least three or four day's drying in a warm place (such as an airing cupboard) after cleaning.

googler

richwhit wrote: »

Really grateful gyys for the advices. So giving the laptop a good clean is probably the first thing I should do - as per your instructions.

NO, taking the Hard Drive out of the machine and getting the data on it backed up is the first priority.

Then, with the HD removed, and with the Optical Drive removed, and with the RAM removed, and any other removable parts taken out, possibly the processor chip as well, and the battery as suggested above, and only THEN do you clean it.

richwhit

Thanks guys,

I have removed the hard drive and given the mother board a pad down. I could see a couple of sticky marks courtesy of the ribena but not a huge amount so am not too confident but lets dry it out and see whether things change when i try to boot up next week.

In the meantime I'm struggling a bit to find out which caddy I need - afraid the descritpions on the amazon links do not mean too much to me!?

I have the hard drive in front of me - it's a Seagate momentus 250gb - does this give me the info I need to know which caddy to buy??

Thx, rich

richwhit

Oops - looks like I acted too soon - sorry grumbler. I did remove the hard drive, battery and ram before padding down but not the processor or optical drive (whatever these are??) what do this look like as I do not want to try removing things that shouldn't be removed

richwhit

is the processor approx 1inch square, white with a label on it and connected by a wire to the battery by any chance :-~