Laptop + beer = no laptop

[nickliv]

Last night some beer was spilt from the arm of the sofa onto my laptop, which was upside down on the floor. It probably got 100 - 200 ml, (The precious beer was running out of the corner when I picked the computer up, but even I couldn't bring myself to drink it.)

I rang my insurers (aviva) and they confirmed the computer is covered, it won't even turn on, having been plugged in (but not running) at the time.

They're sending a repairer to pick it up, and they'll attempt a repair, but if it beats them the machine will be replaced. I don't hold out much hope for them repairing it tbh.

What gets me thinking is the fact that it's a 3 yr old HP laptop that cost £1700 new, but the speed of advancement of these things is such that a £1700 laptop now is almost unheard of, and the spec of such a machine would be interstellar.

What happens in the event or the replacement of a slightly long in the tooth computer, is it a case of you get what you're given, or do you have a say.

I'd also like to keep the HDD, not because I'm concerned / embarrassed at what's on it, but that there are family photos etc. that I'd like to try and recover. (OK, I am a bit embarrassed by the photo of me with a tea cosy on my head) Would this be possible.

Many thanks

Nick

[TobyAnscombe]

Nick - Dunno about the insurance but you should be able to recover most of the data off the hard drive; its very unlikely that its fried!

Insist that you get the old machine back from the insurance people and then take the drive out, Its going to be an old 2.5" IDE drive and you can pick up an external case from fleabay for about £4 that will fit.

I'm slightly biased but I would look to get a Mac and a Time Capsule just because I have been using computers for something like 28 years (my first was a ZX81 that I built from a kit!) and although Macs are just different enough to make the first couple of weeks annoying they do just work....Time Capsule is an external box that sits on your network and backs up your laptop every 30 mins, giving you a complete archive of everything - not seen anything similar for Windows (but there again I havent really looked!).

The other approach to making sure that photos are safe is to take out a pro flickr account and upload everything to it - you can set the viability to private so that no-one else can see them (although the idea of you with a tea cosy sounds nice ) - costs about $50 for 2 years and you can upload the original sizes; very handy for any drama!

As an indication, I have my Mac desktop and laptops backed up to two Time Capsules, my photos are backed up to another drive AND most of the keepers are on Flickr - I have lost stuff about 10 years ago that I could never recover, hence why I am so paranoid.....

Let me know if you need any help!

[nickliv]

Cheers Toby

Most of the stuff is backed up, but I just want to be sure I've got everything.

At the very least I'll be asking for the HDD back for personal security reasons, I've removed it from the lappy , and am just off to maplins for a 2.5 - 3.5 adapter kit, I'll pull everything off it and bung it back into the laptop.

Pretty pissed off atm, it was beer after all.