Cleaning computers after fire

[Jared Watkins]

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