Cleaning computers after fire
Jared Watkins
jared at watkins.net
Mon Dec 20 16:44:00 EST 2004
L.B. MCCULLEY wrote:
>I would second Jared's suggestion that you view the equipment
>exposed to unknown hazards during the fire and firefighting
>as being on borrowed time. However, practical concerns may
>motivate some compromises.
>
>
>
Here are some more thoughts on this.... if the data on the systems is
worth saving.. but you can't afford to replace everything.. I would
suggest getting external drives that attach via USB or firewire and have
separate power supplies. If (more likely when) the systems go bust...
at least they won't take your data or your new drives with them. The
problem here is you just don't know what's going to fail.. or how
gracefully it's going to go when the time comes. This is especially
true for power supplies... they could blow out and even possibly start a
fire. The better ones are designed not to do that... or send damaging
power spikes to the rest of your connected hardware... but being as you
said these were 'commodity' systems.. I doubt they have those
protections in the power supply... and no power supplies are designed to
go through a fire like that and come out normal. This also holds true
for CRT monitors... if they have had soot and water inside them... they
could be quite dangerous... lots of high voltage and things that can go
boom if shorted out. You will get mineral deposits on the circuit
boards which can create paths of conductivity... of course those are
not great conductors... so they will heat up too... joy.
Personal or business... I would view these systems as a write off...
put them back in service and they are sure to bite you in the worst
possible way.
Just another .02c.
Jared
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