A bottle of Diet Coke exploded in my briefcase this morning. Although I "caught it" within a minute, about 10 ounces had filled my briefcase - damaging but not destroying most paper documents.
My laptop seems to be unscathed; the pocket where I keep my external HD seemed dry, but...
When I plug my iOmega "eGo" hard drive in, it spins up and shows up in Explorer - for about 15 seconds. Then it shuts down. The activity/power light goes dark, and it disappears from Explorer. If I immediately unplug and plug back in, nothing. If I wait a few minutes, and try again, the 15-ish second cycle repeats.
It does not appear to make a difference if I reseat the plug at the computer vs. at the HD unit.
USB flash drives work in all ports.
The combo power/data cable I used for the HD powers my cellphone, so I presume that's OK.
MOST of what's on the HD is backed up at home, but I've been on the road for two weeks and have those documents (particularly tax docs!) without backup.
I don't know what I'm looking for here - either optimism (hey, it's only been 2.5 hours; give it time to "dry" and it will be fine), or maybe suggestions on how to force recovery (maybe it's just the connection, and I can crack it open and "fix" it somehow?).
But, any advice, other than "You're screwed" would be awesome.
(btw, Don't know if it matters, it's an iOmega eGo 500GB portable HD, plugged into a Dell Latitude running XP SP3).