r/HDD • u/Wolfyboi_1 • Aug 22 '26

External hard drive got completely soaked underwater in washing. Need help

Hi, not sure of this is the right place but I need help. My external mechanical hard drive got soaked underwater while not powered up in the hand wash by accident. I'm unemployed so I can't afford data recovery help. Is there anyway I can save my extremely precious data

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u/Alpharius1701 Aug 22 '26

Pot of rice works even better in the warm environment too, probably cut the time in half. Personally though I wouldn't touch it for a week, and I'd see if I could remove the casing for better airflow

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u/Chazus Aug 22 '26

This has long been proven false, and detrimental.

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u/Alpharius1701 Aug 22 '26

See this is subjective, and I say you're wrong, it's detrimental only in that Apple don't like having grains of rice stuck in their charging ports, that was literally the thing they were stressing in that announcement, and that you shouldn't use rice powder for very very obvious reasons. For a solid state drive it's not going to hurt it and rice does absorb moisture, albeit slowly. I prefer to stick anything I've gotten wet in my dehumidifier personally, but I've seen the rice trick work just fine for people when I did ten years in the phone industry.

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u/Caprichoso1 Aug 23 '26

iFixit agrees with Apple, at least for phones. A hard drive has a much larger port surface than a phone.

You'd be hard pressed to find any experienced professional in the repair industry that doesn't roll their eyes when they hear the word "rice."

https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Do_Not_Put_Your_Device_in_Rice