Help recovering from water damage - AT&T HTC One (M8)

Back Story: I have a rooted, unlocked M8. An a**hole coworker of mine threw me in a pool while it was in my pocket last night. Got it out and put into rice immediately.
Now phone would turn on and seemed to want to work aside from just being slow to certain touches but other than that it was ok. I started to notice that it was acting up and crashing so i though it might be some sort of software issue. go into recovery and wipe everything to install a new rom but after install using Philz, it just right back to the old rom. No data is missing and the system is not changed. I even tried to restore an old back up but nothing sticks. I get no errors when wiping or installing so I am at a loss right now.
Any new ideas?

That guy owes you a new phone, period. If he is going to do something so stupid, he needs to learn the lesson that there are consequences.
When my wife dunked her iPhone in the toilet, the Genius Bar employee told her that the phone might be fine, or some things might be broken, or that it might seem fine for a while, then just suddenly stop working. Its like a time bomb, you never know if your phone is going to just stop working now. So the guy should replace the phone.
The M8 is water resistant to some degree (but I don't know about total immersion). I'd dry it for a lot more than overnight. If any water go inside the phone, I don't think drying overnight is sufficient. And any remaining water is a possible point of short circuit or corrosion. Power off and dry it for a day or 2 more.

Related

8525 fell in a puddle.

Well it fell out of my pocket into a puddle yesterday, It was still in the leather case so it didn't completely soak. The first thing i did was take out the battery. It was still on after it fell in the water and seemed ok, but i was still in panic mode and took the battery out right away. I didn't have a torx 6 so i took a blowdryer to it, on cool!
Well got the torx 6 today and took the whole thing apart and its under a desk lamp drying up whatever is left.
while i was still panicing i did do a test and put the battery back in when i thought it was dry, and it would turn on and reset itself once it got to the windows push to talk green screen. Dumbest thing i could have done but im past that.
Is there anything else i should do? i was thinking of buying one of those air duster cans and try to blow out any water that might be hideing under the components that could cause shorts.
Any other ideas to get this thing working properly would be awsome. I definatly can't afford another one, i only paid $99 for this one, refurb on cingular.com when they had a mistype.
I dropped my wife's Blackberry pearl in water once, I had the same immediate steps that you did. The only thing differently I did was left it in front of a space heater for a few "good" hours haha. Worked fine after that. Good luck
leave it in a car in all day if its still warm where you live. fixed mine when it fell in the sink and mine still works just fine.
Ok everything went ok when i put everything back together. everything turned on properly and went well till i tested the keyboard.
Now most keys work and a slight few dont. Typing "r" results in "rh" coming on the screen.
Would this be due to the keyboard being ruined, or is it internal circuitry of the pda?
Also something that I experienced with the blackberry. For me I disconnected everything again and let it heat for a couple more hours and it worked just fine. Prob. due to the ability to conduct electrical currents/signals on waters part, just a guess though.
they keyboard area is like sealed i believe the contacts area, i would assume there is water still there or corrosion build up... you can fix that by taking the sticky thing off very very carefully and cleaning the contacts... that is the easy part... aligning it all back and making sure it works would be the hard part... leaving just they keyboard to dry out in some good heat for a while could solve your problem as well... might want to try that first
read the wiki and other areas about taking apart or fixing stuck keys its what i was talking about..

Eris build quality

Just had to share this one.
My fiancee managed to forget her Eris in her pocket and left it in a full wash cycle. After which, she dries off the outside and tries to turn it on... yea, I know . THEN she plugs it in. Again, I know . She finally calls me and tells me what happened. I figured after all she told me it was dead, so we went to get a new phone, since we had a line up for an upgrade.
2 Weeks later (yesterday), I decide to take the phone corpse and put my battery in it. No idea why, just curious. Well, it booted. Did a few tests and checks, and everything, everything!! works . The only thing that seemed to be a loss was the battery. Now we're returning the new one, and keeping that upgrade date available.
Never thought the Eris was that durable. A full wash cycle and trying to turn it on, and we only lost a battery. Awesome.
Theyre pretty tough little phones, some user here posted about how he left it in the snow for a day or two and ran it over with his car unknowingly, once he brought it in and let it dry it still booted up and worked..albeit with a cracked to hell screen. Gotta hand it to HTC, they know how to build phones.
all it really comes down to is water on a circuit board. its really not that big of an issue, as long as the liquid isnt corrosive, or electricity is passing threw the circuit board. then you can just dry it off, let it site, some people even put it in rice to absorb the moisture, then its all good and working again.
ECLIPS3 said:
all it really comes down to is water on a circuit board. its really not that big of an issue, as long as the liquid isnt corrosive, or electricity is passing threw the circuit board. then you can just dry it off, let it site, some people even put it in rice to absorb the moisture, then its all good and working again.
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eh ive had a few lgs beyond repair even with the rice and enough time to dry, htc has consistent build quality
ECLIPS3 said:
all it really comes down to is water on a circuit board. its really not that big of an issue, as long as the liquid isnt corrosive, or electricity is passing threw the circuit board. then you can just dry it off, let it site, some people even put it in rice to absorb the moisture, then its all good and working again.
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That's why it amazes me. She dried off the outside and them tried to turn it on. Even plugged it in. The insides were still water logged. She told me the screen even lit up a strange grey color for a second.
She now knows never to turn on a wet phone, lol
chaoss13 said:
Just had to share this one.
My fiancee managed to forget her Eris in her pocket and left it in a full wash cycle. After which, she dries off the outside and tries to turn it on... yea, I know . THEN she plugs it in. Again, I know . She finally calls me and tells me what happened. I figured after all she told me it was dead, so we went to get a new phone, since we had a line up for an upgrade.
2 Weeks later (yesterday), I decide to take the phone corpse and put my battery in it. No idea why, just curious. Well, it booted. Did a few tests and checks, and everything, everything!! works . The only thing that seemed to be a loss was the battery. Now we're returning the new one, and keeping that upgrade date available.
Never thought the Eris was that durable. A full wash cycle and trying to turn it on, and we only lost a battery. Awesome.
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Click to collapse
Well, that's good to know because I may end up using it as a rock because it's life as a phone is gonna be very short unless I figure out a way for it to hold a charge for more than 3 hours and complete a call without having the person on the other end repeat themselves 3 times. Eris took the "smart" out of smartphone, that's for sure.
Sorry....double post
mountaineerndixie said:
Well, that's good to know because I may end up using it as a rock because it's life as a phone is gonna be very short unless I figure out a way for it to hold a charge for more than 3 hours and complete a call without having the person on the other end repeat themselves 3 times. Eris took the "smart" out of smartphone, that's for sure.
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Sounds like you should call Verizon for a replacement.. assuming you have TEC
-mak

Water damaged Eris-android question not about fixing water issue

Ok so I dropped my Eris water the other day and it turns on but the touch screen stopped working. Thats fine, I just went back to my blackberry but is there a way to get info off of the phone. Since my touch screen does not work I can not get into the phone but I have numbers that were not saved, text messages, and other info on the phone that I need the touch screen to access. Is there any way to check my messages from the pc for android or recover them. Thanks
rllong1 said:
Ok so I dropped my Eris water the other day and it turns on but the touch screen stopped working. Thats fine, I just went back to my blackberry but is there a way to get info off of the phone. Since my touch screen does not work I can not get into the phone but I have numbers that were not saved, text messages, and other info on the phone that I need the touch screen to access. Is there any way to check my messages from the pc for android or recover them. Thanks
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Click to collapse
if its water dont give up it will come back leave it in a bag of rice to draw out the water
If you turned it on it's probably too late and is broken... if you really are optimistic try the rice but that only really works if the phone doesn't turn back on.
i have heard stories of these going into the wash cycle and coming back after a few days
rice doesnt actually work any better then just sitting your phone on a counter, dried corn actually does absorb humidity out of the air (alton brown actually went into a 10 minute long scientific rant on why this is)
have you tried the master application? i haven't myself, but i bet there are ways to pull data off using it.
Lemcott said:
rice doesnt actually work any better then just sitting your phone on a counter, dried corn actually does absorb humidity out of the air (alton brown actually went into a 10 minute long scientific rant on why this is)
have you tried the master application? i haven't myself, but i bet there are ways to pull data off using it.
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Both dry rice AND dry corn do indeed pull moisture out of the air for sure.
It's just that most people have dried rice around their house, and most people do NOT have dried corn around their house.
I have had great experience with rice, and poor experience with the 'counter'. I definitely spilled coffee on my Eris last week (a lot), then pulled battery, rinsed it off with REGULAR water (because I didn't want the coffee to dry on there and ruin things), then wiped it quickly, shook it, and threw it in rice for a few hours. It has run 100% since.
I don't feel like leaving it on the counter would have brought that much success.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/20/how-to-clean-up-water-damaged-electronics-the-rice-bowl/
Neither here nor there, I suspect that uncooked rice is a better choice than 'out in the open'.
The most important thing with any wet electronics is probably NOT TO TURN IT ON while it's still wet. Wait at least 24 hours, either in rice, near a stove top, dried corn, or whatever you're going to use.
But DONT' turn it on. That won't make ANYthing better.
Good luck
LOL, you specificically indicated that your question was not about fixing water damage in the title of your post, and you got 5 replies about how to fix water damage.
If your phone was rooted, the easiest way to do what you are asking would be to find another rooted phone, and manually make a nandroid backup via adb, take the SD card out of your phone, put it in the other root phone, and restore that backup to that phone. This would only work if you had USB debugging turned on before the phone got wet.
If your phone was rooted, but you couldn't find another rooted phone to help you out, what you are asking is technically feasible, but far, far more time consuming: reverse engineer the data files for the apps in question. That sounds daunting, but is probably not as bad as it seems, as many of the phone apps use "sql_lite" databases, and text within the database files can be seen using a hex editor or the Unix command "strings"
If your phone is not rooted, I think you are SOL.
bftb0
Thanks for all your help guys. I turned my phone on because I didnt know not to turn it on LOL but I know now. I hope it will turn back on but thanks for your help guys about the data.
Google contacts (not the phone type) automagically upload to Google. And most data other than that should be saved on the SD card anyway.
If you used Google contacts and not phone contacts, login to gmail and goto contacts. They should be in there.
Can't you navigate with the trackball?

water damage

Last night i was out, and well basically my phone isnt working and im 90% sure its water damage now, the screen has little white bits round the end, whats the best way to get it working again, because it wont turn on :/
sell it on ebay for parts and buy another one.
pcdocta said:
sell it on ebay for parts and buy another one.
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Click to collapse
I concur.
My girlfriend knocked her phone off the counter into the toilet when she was sick (needless to say phone had some chunks on it as well). It was game over. luckily in US we are able to insure it and we are now getting a new one for the one time "low cost" of $125. 125 is better than a full retail, thats for sure. I made her call AT&T before just to see if we could weasel a SII on early upgrade, no dice.
Moral: Insurance ftw
First suck all the beer out of it! Want not waste not!
Assimilated via WinBorg 4G
Best thing to do would have been to take out the battery/sim/sdcard and put in dry rice immediately, then leave overnight. Might not be too late either, but def should have done that right away. Right after I got my Captivate I got really drunk and accidentally soaked it, I didnt even realize it had gotten so wet until I woke up the next morning and tried to turn it on. It even tried to boot, showing the Samsung screen briefly then immediately turning off. Taking the battery door off there was water drops inside. After about 18 hours in rice I was soooo surprised that it booted right up and I havent had a problem out of it to this day!! I still use it all the time.
CaelanT said:
First suck all the beer out of it! Want not waste not!
Assimilated via WinBorg 4G
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It wasnt even beer, it was just raining loads so it got soaked in my pocket
Thanks for the advice guys, i put it in dry rice so we'll see how that goes *fingers crossed*
So i have put it in dry rice, and well it booted up but the touch screen was unresponsive, and so was the fingerprint sensor leaving me with no way to actually use any of the phones features, i think there is a tiny bit of water left so im going to stick it in rice a bit longer but try and get the screen repaired if that doesnt help,
Is there anyway i can access the stuff on my phone using the usb connection maybe?
Sorry to hear about your phone. My son got pushed into a swimming pool with his Atrix in his pocket. It is fully functional today.
What we did.
Rice and a warm spot. Not for hours... It took a whole week before everything straightened out. There was an issue with the sim and sd card readers, but nothing an emery board didn't fix.
First mistake, you turned (tried to) it on. Second mistake...........you turned it on too soon after putting it in rice.
One day in dry rice is not enough. If you read guides about water damage you will see that you really should have the phone in dry ice for 5 days. Never ever plug it into the charger or turn it on before you do this. Only takes one wee drop of liquid to short something out.
Next, you should strip the phone down and clean everything internally to make sure you will not suffer from oxidation and corrosion in the future. Many phones will work after being in dry rice, only to succumb to corrosion after a few weeks or months because all the connectors inside became oxidized.
In short, water damage is horrible, but there are many guides on the internet specific to this outside of XDA which can help you. The iPhone water damage guides are especially useful, even though the hardware is different. The concept is exactly the same.
First rule is always do not attempt to turn the phone on, and do not plug into a charger.
malfuncion said:
I concur.
My girlfriend knocked her phone off the counter into the toilet when she was sick (needless to say phone had some chunks on it as well). It was game over. luckily in US we are able to insure it and we are now getting a new one for the one time "low cost" of $125. 125 is better than a full retail, thats for sure. I made her call AT&T before just to see if we could weasel a SII on early upgrade, no dice.
Moral: Insurance ftw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SII isin't an upgrade.
Thanks caelan, cant change what i've done now, so maybe ive ruined my phone my turning it on multiple times, ive left it in the dry rice which im gooing to do for the rest of the week and if it isnt then working im going to take it to repair shop, thanks for all your guys help.
King_MSD said:
Thanks caelan, cant change what i've done now, so maybe ive ruined my phone my turning it on multiple times, ive left it in the dry rice which im gooing to do for the rest of the week and if it isnt then working im going to take it to repair shop, thanks for all your guys help.
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Click to collapse
Hope this helps, the phone that I mentioned, was turned on immediately after getting wet. His girlfriend was the smart one and pulled the battery for him.
We sat it in the rice and checked it every day by turning it on. (I am in no way recommending this btw, simply reporting an experience.). Each day it seems like it got better and better. The last two days everything was working, but there was still evidence of moisture on the screen. So we baked it for a few extra days. I did have an advantage over you. The outside temp was 100 plus and I sat his, in that bag of rice, on the hood of a red car everyday for most of the afternoon. It will most likely take longer with a cooler temp to work with.
We may have been 'lucky'. But this is so you know that there is a great chance that everything will be fine.
well, an update on my girlfriend's PUKE phone:
The day I posted that was I think thursday, we let is sit all thursday- friday- saturday. On sunday (around noon) she couldnt handle the Nokia 3360 any longer. When she left for her "mani/pedi", I sat down with the poor phone. After a little cleaning of contacts and such I was able to get it to boot and come up. When she got home it was up and going. She was thrilled and I got a "reward".
She used it all Sunday and today until the insurance joint came in. The only thing that didnt totally dry was the screen. It looked like pure hell, but worked. She said anythign was etter than the old green screen nokia
PS- she had tried to turn it on friday and got a "Modem Failed to Initialize: Starting RSD". Sunday it worked fine.
i dropped my phone in the toilet. managed to take it out. it was still in the power on state. removed battery asap! whats next?? shall i get it some heat, hair drier or bulb ?? how many day do i need to keep this phone in the rice? also im not an expert in disassembling!!! any suggestions?
I've heard up to a week but a couple days will probably work. I would probably just use a can of compressed air. Hair dryers can create enough heat to loosen the adhesive for screens on phones. Maybe place it near a vent or put it on a window sill with sunlight?
njarun said:
i dropped my phone in the toilet. managed to take it out. it was still in the power on state. removed battery asap! whats next?? shall i get it some heat, hair drier or bulb ?? how many day do i need to keep this phone in the rice? also im not an expert in disassembling!!! any suggestions?
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Click to collapse

Wow, you ever make one of those stupid mistakes?

I flashed the newest ICS leak today, and was having a slight problem with the process so to ease the process of removing the battery I left the back off. I could not gain network connection no matter what I tried and spent hours reflashing roms, kernels, recovery and a combo of GB and ICS parts. I was about ready to toss my phone against the wall and give up thinking I bricked my phone, and decided to put the cover back on and set it aside till I could just walk away and forget about it. Low and behold, network connection started working. DUH!!!! The antennae is in the battery cover, so I spent hours stressing and cussing and the whole time it was my fault for not having the cover one. Wow...what a dunderhead. Lesson learned.
Don't feel alone others have done and reported exactly the same thing
Still good to let others know about it for those unaware
Haha....I've done that too.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA
I can relate. First time I played with the phone, I didn't know the back was the antenna and I was going crazy and panicking. Then recently I flashed a ROM for the first time and started to panic because I couldn't get into HBOOT and thought my phone was bricked, until I remembered I was plugged into my computer.
I actually did the same thing this weekend. At first I chalked it up to lack of sleep, and then when I stood up from my chair, the back fell on the floor and I realized what I had done
Yup, I have that t-shirt too.
Yep, been there, done that. I know it helps reception, but i really hate having my antenna built into something easily breakable/losable...

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