• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help How to recover the HTC after dropping it in water

mkur005

Lurker
Jun 13, 2011
2
0
Hi there,

I dropped my HTC Desire in water last week and its been drying for the past 4 days. I tried restarting the phone today and the screen began to blink and the phone went into Fastboot. The options displayed on the screen were :

Bootloader
Reboot
Reload Bootloader
Power Down

I selected Bootloader > Recovery, hoping it might help but the screen continued to blink. Can someone please help me recover my phone?

Thanks
 
Hi there,

I dropped my HTC Desire in water last week and its been drying for the past 4 days. I tried restarting the phone today and the screen began to blink and the phone went into Fastboot. The options displayed on the screen were :

Bootloader
Reboot
Reload Bootloader
Power Down

I selected Bootloader > Recovery, hoping it might help but the screen continued to blink. Can someone please help me recover my phone?

Thanks

Dont lose hope yet! My sister dropped her Desire in the water TWICE in space of few months! Once in the toilet bowl and the other time in a hot cuppa tea! Initially everybody were telling me the phones has had it but I refused to throw in the towel so I let the phone dry ina bag of rice for a week or so before turning it on. Thankfully it booted up but I knew the software was fried so I rooted the phone and added custom rom and voila its good as new. Hope that helps! Good luck!
 
  • Like
Reactions: lays123 and mkur005
Upvote 0
Dont lose hope yet! My sister dropped her Desire in the water TWICE in space of few months! Once in the toilet bowl and the other time in a hot cuppa tea! Initially everybody were telling me the phones has had it but I refused to throw in the towel so I let the phone dry ina bag of rice for a week or so before turning it on. Thankfully it booted up but I knew the software was fried so I rooted the phone and added custom rom and voila its good as new. Hope that helps! Good luck!

That is lucky. I think if you take it ouf of the water and remove the battery VERY quickly you may be ok, its just if it is in contact with water while its still got power to it that ruins the phone as it short circuits it.
 
Upvote 0
Dont lose hope yet! My sister dropped her Desire in the water TWICE in space of few months! Once in the toilet bowl and the other time in a hot cuppa tea! Initially everybody were telling me the phones has had it but I refused to throw in the towel so I let the phone dry ina bag of rice for a week or so before turning it on. Thankfully it booted up but I knew the software was fried so I rooted the phone and added custom rom and voila its good as new. Hope that helps! Good luck!

My phone has been sitting in a bowl of rice for the past 3 days in a room with the dehumidifier on. I think the phones dried up now. I hope its an issue with the software and not hardware of the phone. How do I add custom rom? Can someone please guide me through the steps?

Thanks
 
Upvote 0
That is lucky. I think if you take it ouf of the water and remove the battery VERY quickly you may be ok, its just if it is in contact with water while its still got power to it that ruins the phone as it short circuits it.

I have to admit when I saw red water stickers under the battery I thought the phone was knackered! But to my surprise it was working again few days later. Second time it happened I thought no way it would work this time but went throught the same procedure as the 1st time around and voila it lives!!! So I have to say this phone is incredibily resilient! Its made of sterner stuff!
 
Upvote 0
My phone has been sitting in a bowl of rice for the past 3 days in a room with the dehumidifier on. I think the phones dried up now. I hope its an issue with the software and not hardware of the phone. How do I add custom rom? Can someone please guide me through the steps?

Thanks

I am not sure how you can add a custom rom without booting up the phone 1st. So your bet is to get it working again! For starters, you need to leave you phone well alone for a week at least. 3 days is insufficient enough to dry out completely believe me! In the meantime have a look at XDA website there are loads of custom roms you can choose from. I would also highly recommend you to check out SUroots guide to rooting. You'll find that in the rooting section.
 
Upvote 0
If it's software related, rooting and flashing a custom ROM might prove challenging. If you can get it running a factory reset, might, help, although I doubt it. The problems you're describing sound very similar to what happened to mine when it went for a dip in the toilet a few weeks ago. Only quickly getting it out of the water, and removing the battery, combined with rice saved mine. Leave it another couple days, and then try rebooting, if it's still flickering, then odds are she's a goner.
 
Upvote 0
hi

i have an htc desire c and i went to the beach on friday. i thought i was gonna take some pictures so i brought my phone along with me but by the time i got there it ran out of charge so i turned it off and put it in my pocket. i was running and playing and messing about and i didnt realise my phone had fallen out of my pocket. just when i was about to go home i realised i didnt have it with me. i panicked i couldnt find it anywhere and i thought i must hav lost it somewhere in the sand but just when i gave up hope i found it dragged to shore by the sea. at that point i was just glad i found it. then when i got home i realised it was wet and it probably wasnt gonna work beacause it was probably in the water for ages. but i still didnt give up- i tried drying it with a hairdryer and got most of the sand out but it still didnt work. i thought it might just need some more time to dry. its monday now and i tried charging it but it still isnt working i hav no idea what to do- can someone pls help i dont think the rice thing is going to work because ive already given it lodas of time to dry already. can someone pls help me it was my first phone and ive only had it for 4 months and my mum is not going to buy me a new one. pls i will REALLY apprecite it
 
Upvote 0
Sorry, probably too late to help now, though if it was salt water on the phone there was probably nothing you could do.

The only thing I can think of would be to try washing it in isopropyl alcohol (or very pure ethanol - lab alcohol rather than drinking stuff). Probably best dismantled first. But if it's spent any time in sea water even that is a very long shot, as that stuff is highly corrosive.

For future reference, the rice trick is better than a hair drier because using heat to dry it can increase corrosion. But in this case I doubt anything would make any difference.

Sorry :(
 
Upvote 0
Sorry, probably too late to help now, though if it was salt water on the phone there was probably nothing you could do.

The only thing I can think of would be to try washing it in isopropyl alcohol (or very pure ethanol - lab alcohol rather than drinking stuff). Probably best dismantled first. But if it's spent any time in sea water even that is a very long shot, as that stuff is highly corrosive.

For future reference, the rice trick is better than a hair drier because using heat to dry it can increase corrosion. But in this case I doubt anything would make any difference.

Sorry :(

First of all, where am i supposed to get alcohol that strong from!!! u cant find that stuff in supermarkets and they probably wont sell it to me anyways because im waay under age.
secondly, surely it will make it even worse because the acid could damage the phone isnt it corossive or something
thanks anyways- ur right its probably too late :/
 
Upvote 0
Alcohol isn't an acid. It's an organic solvent, which will help with removing the crud that will have been deposited by the sea water, and it dries very quickly. It's actually a lot less dangerous to the phone than water.

But yeah, you won't get it in a supermarket. A chemist perhaps, or lab supplies (except it's the school holidays, so you can't just ask a teacher for help with this).

But as I say, if it was exposed to sea water the odds were pretty bad from the start. If you had any pictures etc on the SD card I'd see whether you can copy them to a computer (if you haven't got one, usb microSD card readers are cheap). If you are lucky the card may still work now, but that doesn't mean it won't fail later - corrosion can be insidious.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones