Seawater pollution cleaning?

[SirForensic]

Hi All,

Fun situations. I have one case where drives are water damaged by seawater. The platters and everything are polluted inside, the salt mineral is stuck hard on top of the platters, but few tests did show pretty good success using a special 3M Contact Cleaner, but maybe there's a better way to "soften" the hard salt mineral first before doing the other cleaning?

Has anyone worked before with similar cases, and how did you clean the platters?

TIA!

[Doomer]

distilled water works best

[SirForensic]

distilled water works best

Thanks for your answer. Are you using ultrasonic cleaner together with distilled water or just rubbing the pollution off with pads and water?

[Doomer]

I used both in the past, now I don't use the ultrasonic cleaner

[SirForensic]

I used both in the past, now I don't use the ultrasonic cleaner

Interesting, was there some reason you don't use the ultrasonic cleaner anymore?

Sorry for bothering you with so many questions.

[Green Slime]

CLR and water in an ultrasonic cleaner is your best bet to start with. Putting distilled water is not really any benefit over tap as the second you turn on the cleaner the water gets full of dirt anyway but it can't hurt. Rubbing the platters at all while there is still corrosion will be like scrubbing sand paper over them, you really shouldn't touch them at all until as much as possible is off. Spray 99.99% IPA if you want to give them a rinse off to remove loose particles before wiping.