I have a Alcatel Onetouch IDol Mini and I dropped it into the water a couple of days ago. I dried it but when I try to turn it on, nothing happens. But when I connect it to my pc, it turns on and it shows the alcatel logo, then just shuts down. Then it turns on and off again. This continues the whole time, and when I try to go into recovery mode, the phone turns off so I dont have time to do anything. What do I have to do?
You have to get a new phone. Drying the outside of the phone isn't enough to keep the water from destroying it. When a phone gets wet enough that there may be water inside, the first thing you do is remove the battery. Immediately. Don't waste time turning the phone off. If the phone doesn't have a removable battery you have 2 choices, do minor damage to the phone that's cheap to repair or throw the phone out. The "damage" is to break the back cover off and cut one of the wires to the battery. (It doesn't matter which one.) Then BATHE the phone in alcohol - plain old 70% rubbing alcohol. Swish the phone around vigorously. This does 2 things. Alcohol absorbs water, so you're getting it into all the little places that tiny amounts of water got into, and getting rid of the water, and you're washing off minerals and dirt. After a few minutes of this, change the alcohol, drain the phone and do it again. Do it 3 times. If you have the battery out of the phone, wipe it down with alcohol. (But if it goes bad, batteries are cheap to replace.) Now that the phone is clean and mostly dry, put it into a plastic bag, container or glass jar that can be sealed, filled with uncooked rice. Fill about half of it with rice, drop the phone in and cover it in rice. If you're lucky enough to have large quantities (a few pounds) of silica gel, use that - it works better than rice. Leave the phone in the rice for a week. (Or in silica gel for a couple of days.) If you got to the phone quickly enough - before current flowing from the battery destroyed something by going through a wet path, or before some mineral carbonized and left a short, the phone will work. Sometimes the phone will work, but will start showing signs of failure - hanging up on calls, the screen not working right, etc. That means hat there was some little bit of damage, it's going to keep getting worse, but you bought yourself a little time to save up for a new phone. Next time you're going to be near water (or you have to use your phone outside even if it's pouring rain), put the phone into a sandwich baggie. You can use the screen, press the buttons and talk abd hear through the plastic - and the phone won't get wet. (Zip the bag shut, of course.)
