So there was a fire...

On July 7th my house was struck by lightning and caught fire in the attic and spread to the rest of the house. Firemen ran in to do damage control and move all of the items from the burning rooms to areas which were not yet burning. My Macbook (bought in april) was moved to another room by one of the fighters.

When allowed to look at the damage, the aluminum had scratches all over the surface etc... etc... I opened up the screen to find there was small amounts of water on the glass and keys. Earlier that day I had used it without the charger and pretty much drained the charge; I believe I had left it in stand by and set it down on my bed while I went fishing in the pouring rain and lightning. My charger was thrown out of my window along with my bed and plasma screen. When I went to look at the macbook it was no longer in stand by, and when I went to use my friends charger and my new charger (typing this on my new macbook pro) the small light would blink from a very dim orange to a very dim green, and would continue to do so until I unplugged it.

The macbook does not turn on and doesn't seem to charge, I'm guessing the logic board got wet through the keys and would now need to be replaced in order to use that macbook again.

Can anyone tell me if I am correct or if it could be something else?

One final question: Can I put my hard drive from the aforementioned macbook into my current macbook pro (13" model same specs as the macbook if not better)?

Thanks in advance guys.

Yes, the water exposure likely killed the system board. It should be covered under your home owners insurance (assuming you have it).

The hard drive is probably fine, if it didn't get exposed too badly. I would pick up one of these and hook it up as an external to your MacBook Pro to see if you can salvage anything.

Good luck!

cwa107 said:

Yes, the water exposure likely killed the system board. It should be covered under your home owners insurance (assuming you have it).

The hard drive is probably fine, if it didn't get exposed too badly. I would pick up one of these and hook it up as an external to your MacBook Pro to see if you can salvage anything.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Yeah It was covered under our insurance, we have $250,000 worth of contents coverage on top of what we have for the actual damage to the house. I went out and bought the macbook pro yesterday which they are writing me a check to cover the expense.

Thank you for posting that link, I had no idea those even existed. I am going to go out to micro-center to see if they have any and pick one up because I had too much software on there and wouldn't want to have to re-buy and reinstall it all (cs4, final cut studio 2, etc...).

Thanks much for your quick and helpful reply.

xxtnxx said:

Yeah It was covered under our insurance, we have $250,000 worth of contents coverage on top of what we have for the actual damage to the house. I went out and bought the macbook pro yesterday which they are writing me a check to cover the expense.

Thank you for posting that link, I had no idea those even existed. I am going to go out to micro-center to see if they have any and pick one up because I had too much software on there and wouldn't want to have to re-buy and reinstall it all (cs4, final cut studio 2, etc...).

Thanks much for your quick and helpful reply.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, these are great tools and in my opinion, should be in every serious computer user's toolkit.

I'd be surprised if any good computer store didn't stock them. They should run around $20. If you need to check with a clerk, tell them that you're looking for a "SATA to USB adapter". It doesn't necessarily need to say "Mac compatible" on the box.

Again, good luck and I hope all goes well in recovering from the fire.