M.2 salvaged from house fire

[Unorthofox]

My apartment building burned down and I only bothered salvaging the storage from my water damaged computer. I'm unsure how high the temperatures in my room reached so it's hard to say whether or not these were damaged by water alone or high heat as well. It was around a few days before I was allowed into the apartment. I opened my pc and pulled out my hard drive as well as my m.2 ssd and they didnt feel wet (especially the m.2 that was pretty well guarded within the motherboard)

 After wiping them down they dont have any visible damage on them but they still smell like the smoke and silt that had been sitting on it for days. The computer was off at the time of the fire but still plugged in. How would I go about testing these without ruining them further, at the same time evading paying professional tech guys to inspect them. 

[W-L]

21 minutes ago, Unorthofox said:

My apartment building burned down and I only bothered salvaging the storage from my water damaged computer. I'm unsure how high the temperatures in my room reached so it's hard to say whether or not these were damaged by water alone or high heat as well. It was around a few days before I was allowed into the apartment. I opened my pc and pulled out my hard drive as well as my m.2 ssd and they didnt feel wet (especially the m.2 that was pretty well guarded within the motherboard)

 After wiping them down they dont have any visible damage on them but they still smell like the smoke and silt that had been sitting on it for days. The computer was off at the time of the fire but still plugged in. How would I go about testing these without ruining them further, at the same time evading paying professional tech guys to inspect them. 

Welcome to the Forums!

 

Sorry to hear about fire, but If the data is irreplaceable on the drives it would be best practice to send them off to an expert to recover the data.

 

For the SSD if you do choose to go the route of trying to pull data yourself I would clean the PCB off using 99% isopropyl alcohol and test on an external M.2 adapter personally to ensure it doesn't damage a motherboard if something is wrong with it. The HDD is a bit more tough since there is fire soot and smoke particles can force their way into the drive, there is a "filter" per say but it's not designed for something like soot or so power it on even if you clean the external PCB is still a risk unless it's opened and check in a clean environment.

 

All this is also barring that it did not suffer from excessive heat damage. 

[mariushm]

Yeah, bathe the ssd in isopropyl alcohol .. ex put it on a plate and pour alcohol until it's covered with alcohol then use a paintbrush or something to shake the ssd so alcohol gets everywhere.

The alcohol will evaporate quickly in a plate so it's not a good idea but this way you don't waste much alcohol... Ideally, use a big cup so that you can fill it with alcohol and cover the cup to prevent it from evaporating and maybe reuse the alcohol for other things, and would allow you to shake the cup a bit

 

Your CPU should also be fine, considering it's been sandwiched between motherboard cpu socket and cpu cooler. Cooler may also be usable if you replace the fan.

RAM should also be fine, bathe it in alcohol, wipe the contacts, make sure they're not corroded ... 

 

Motherboard can be cleaned with regular warm water (pour a few drops of regular window cleaner or regular dish washing liquid in the water you use to clean the motherboard - picture pouring a spoon of liquid/detergent in maybe a bucket worth of water - just be careful not to have chlorine or anything with that hard stuff). Use a brush to get the soapy water everywhere, under sockets, under everything... use brush with softer hair not toothbrush , because you risk breaking off small surface mounted resistors and capacitors. 

Once it's properly cleaned, rinse it well with regular warm water and let it dry in a warm place ... at least over night. 

 

 

 

[Unorthofox]

8 hours ago, W-L said:

Welcome to the Forums!

 

Sorry to hear about fire, but If the data is irreplaceable on the drives it would be best practice to send them off to an expert to recover the data.

 

For the SSD if you do choose to go the route of trying to pull data yourself I would clean the PCB off using 99% isopropyl alcohol and test on an external M.2 adapter personally to ensure it doesn't damage a motherboard if something is wrong with it. The HDD is a bit more tough since there is fire soot and smoke particles can force their way into the drive, there is a "filter" per say but it's not designed for something like soot or so power it on even if you clean the external PCB is still a risk unless it's opened and check in a clean environment.

 

All this is also barring that it did not suffer from excessive heat damage. 

Thank you so much for the advice 

[Unorthofox]

4 hours ago, mariushm said:

Yeah, bathe the ssd in isopropyl alcohol .. ex put it on a plate and pour alcohol until it's covered with alcohol then use a paintbrush or something to shake the ssd so alcohol gets everywhere.

The alcohol will evaporate quickly in a plate so it's not a good idea but this way you don't waste much alcohol... Ideally, use a big cup so that you can fill it with alcohol and cover the cup to prevent it from evaporating and maybe reuse the alcohol for other things, and would allow you to shake the cup a bit

 

Your CPU should also be fine, considering it's been sandwiched between motherboard cpu socket and cpu cooler. Cooler may also be usable if you replace the fan.

RAM should also be fine, bathe it in alcohol, wipe the contacts, make sure they're not corroded ... 

 

Motherboard can be cleaned with regular warm water (pour a few drops of regular window cleaner or regular dish washing liquid in the water you use to clean the motherboard - picture pouring a spoon of liquid/detergent in maybe a bucket worth of water - just be careful not to have chlorine or anything with that hard stuff). Use a brush to get the soapy water everywhere, under sockets, under everything... use brush with softer hair not toothbrush , because you risk breaking off small surface mounted resistors and capacitors. 

Once it's properly cleaned, rinse it well with regular warm water and let it dry in a warm place ... at least over night. 

 

 

 

Thank you