The immediate answer: If your phone, disk, USB flash drive, or memory card has come into contact with water, turn it off immediately and do not switch it on again „just to test". Do not connect a charger, do not dry it with a hairdryer, and do not put the device in rice. If your data is important, the key is prompt disconnection from power, disassembly, cleaning of electrolyte, and only then safe data reading.

Phone disassembled after contact with dirty water, showing visible silt residue and oxidation inside the device
After a flood, coffee, or sugary tea, water is rarely the only problem. A conductive film, contaminants, and oxidation remain under the covers, which can damage the power supply and memory components upon powering on.

When a phone falls into water, most people worry about whether it will still switch on. With data recovery, it is the other way round. We do not care whether the device will continue to function as a phone. We care whether your photos, videos, contacts, accounting data, or project files are preserved and whether we will destroy them permanently with another attempt to power on.

Water itself is rarely the biggest enemy. What is dissolved in the water is worse: minerals, sugar, salt, coffee residue, tea, wine, flood mud, or cleaning chemicals. As soon as liquid reaches the board and there is a battery or residual voltage present, corrosion and electrolysis begin. This is why a device sometimes dies several hours after being wet and why a seemingly „dry" phone can stop responding completely after two days.

What Matters in the First Minutes

The best procedure is dull, but it works:

  1. Switch off and disconnect from power. For a phone, do not connect a charger. For a laptop, unplug the adapter. For an external drive, disconnect both USB and the power supply.
  2. Do not attempt to test. One power-on „to see if it still works" can burn out the PMIC, SSD controller, USB bridge, or HDD electronics.
  3. Do not heat. A hairdryer, oven, heater, or sunlight is not drying for electronics. Heat accelerates corrosion, and airflow often pushes liquid under BGA chips.
  4. Do not put it in rice. Rice will not draw liquid out from under covers and chips. You only lose time and introduce starchy dust into the connectors.
  5. Decide on the priority: data or the device. If data is the priority, have an expert assess whether it is safer to repair the board or read the memory outside the device.

Time does not guarantee success. Recovery sometimes works even after weeks. However, the first 24 hours fundamentally reduce the extent of corrosion and therefore the cost and risk of the intervention.

Why Rice Does Not Work

The rice myth persists because, with older button phones, it was sometimes enough to dry out moisture in the connector or under the keypad. A modern phone, however, is a different construction. It has a multilayer mainboard, BGA chips, shielding cans, a bonded display, a tight frame, and miniature connectors. Liquid gets into places rice has no chance of reaching.

Moreover, the main problem after liquid ingress is not just moisture. It is the conductive residue left after the liquid evaporates. Sweet tea, coffee, beer, salt water, or dirty floodwater leaves a film on the board that conducts electricity and corrodes metal. A phone may look dry after three days in rice, but an aggressive coating remains under the chip. Upon power-on, it acts like a short circuit.

Detail of a phone mainboard with oxidation, mineral liquid residue, and damaged contacts after water ingress
Typical detail after liquid ingress: white mineral coating, green-blue oxidation, and liquid residue around connectors. The device may appear dry from the outside, but the exact opposite is happening under the chips and shielding.

The correct procedure is disassembly, battery disconnection, visual and electrical inspection, cleaning with isopropyl alcohol or an ultrasonic cleaner depending on the board type, and only then measuring the power rails. If the phone holds valuable data, there is no sense in gambling.

Real Case: Galaxy S10 with Tea Spill

A client brought in a Samsung Galaxy S10 that had been spilt on with tea containing milk and sugar. The phone went dead instantly. At home, they wiped it, tried to switch it on several times, and then left it in rice for three days. When it arrived at our lab, it did not respond to buttons or the charger.

The phone contained holiday photos, wedding pictures, and her granddaughter’s christening. Cloud backup was switched on, but the last full sync had occurred roughly three months earlier. This is a typical scenario: technically, a „backup exists", but practically, the most recent and most precious events are missing.

Samsung Galaxy S10 mainboard removed from the phone, ready for diagnostics of oxidation and power circuits
Mainboard outside the phone. For liquid-damaged phones, we look for power shorts, the extent of oxidation, and, most importantly, the condition of the memory chip where photos and videos are stored.

Diagnostics revealed a short circuit in the power section of the board. The PMIC power circuit was damaged, and the surrounding area showed signs of oxidation. Crucially, however, the UFS memory chip appeared undamaged, and the liquid had not reached it to a destructive extent.

At that moment, two paths exist:

  • Board revival. Clean the oxidation, repair or replace power circuits, and attempt to start the phone normally.
  • UFS chip-off. Remove the memory chip, connect it via a specialised adapter, and read data outside the original phone.

In this case, the priority was clear: photos and videos, not a working phone. We chose direct memory reading. This sacrifices the phone but reduces the risk that repeated repair attempts will also kill the memory.

The result: approximately 82 GB of photos and videos, of which about 95% were recovered. Mainly, a portion of the most recent files that were not fully written to the main memory were missing. All essential photos from the wedding, holiday, and christening were saved.

External storage with recovered data from a Samsung Galaxy S10 after rescue via UFS chip-off
Data after extraction from UFS memory is handed over on new media. For a phone after water damage, the goal is usually getting photos and videos out, not saving the original device at all costs.

A more detailed technical version can be found in the case study Samsung Galaxy S10 after Water Contact.

Phone after Water: When Data Can Be Saved

The chances depend on four things:

  • Condition of the memory. In modern phones, data resides in a UFS/eMMC chip. If the chip is physically healthy, a path exists.
  • Encryption and security. Some phones bind data to the processor, Secure Enclave, Knox, or a user passcode. You cannot simply „read the chip" and expect it to work.
  • Extent of corrosion. If a short circuit destroyed the power supply but the memory is alive, chances are good. If the liquid has affected the memory, processor, and surrounding BGA joints, the work is more complex.
  • Attempts before delivery. Charging, powering on, rice, hairdryers, and amateur opening typically increase the damage.

For iPhones, Samsungs, and other modern phones, we therefore first address board diagnostics and the data path. Sometimes, the best approach is to revive the phone just enough to make a backup. At other times, chip-off or board-level work is safer. No universal home guide exists, as each phone generation has different security and memory architecture.

Disk, USB Flash, or NAS after Water

For disks and flash media, the procedure differs from a phone, but the „do not power on" rule applies equally.

An external HDD after liquid ingress should never be connected to a computer. If water has entered the drive, it can carry contaminants between the heads and platters. If it only entered the USB enclosure, it can burn out the electronics or bridge. You cannot reliably tell from the outside.

SSDs and USB flash drives have a controller, NAND memory, and power rails. After water, the electronics often fail, but the memory chips may remain readable. It is essential not to worsen the condition with additional current.

A NAS or RAID after flooding should be left switched off, and above all, do not swap the disks. With RAID, label the positions of the disks, photograph the bays, and do not initiate a rebuild. When dealing with water and an array simultaneously, any change of order complicates reconstruction.

We have a separate procedure page for disks at external disk data recovery and for larger arrays at RAID and NAS data recovery.

What to Bring or Send to Us

Bring or send the entire device as it is. For a phone, do not include the charger unless requested. For an external drive, include the USB cable only if it is non-standard. For a NAS/RAID, it is important to supply all disks and preserve the order.

In the description, state:

  • when the spill or flooding occurred,
  • what substance the device was affected by (water, coffee, tea, salt water, flood),
  • whether the device was switched on or charged after the liquid ingress,
  • what exactly you need rescuing (photos, accounts, projects, specific folders),
  • whether a cloud or other backup exists.

If you are sending the device by courier, use the guide how to send a hard drive, SSD, or phone. For a flooded device, a sturdy box, padding on all sides, and no other loose items in the parcel is best.

Price and Diagnostics: Keeping Our Pages Consistent

For standard media such as HDDs, SSDs, USB flash drives, memory cards, NAS, and RAID, we maintain the standard data recovery rule: free diagnostics and, for standard cases, a no recovery - no fee principle.

For phones and tablets, it is different. Dismantling, battery disconnection, cleaning, power rail measuring, and data path verification are manual labour, even if the data ultimately cannot be obtained. Therefore, for phones and tablets, there is a fixed diagnostics fee according to the data recovery price list. In practice, it is fair to state this upfront, rather than promising „free" where it does not apply.

Quick FAQ

My phone fell into water but is still on. Should I leave it switched on?

No. Turn it off as soon as possible. The fact that it is still on does not mean corrosion or a short circuit is not progressing inside. The longer the board is under power, the higher the risk.

Can I at least charge the phone to make a backup?

After liquid ingress, no. Charging is one of the worst attempts because you are sending a higher current into a wet or corroded board. If the phone has not switched itself off, switch it off and address the backup only after inspection.

Is there a difference between clean water and salt water?

Yes. Salt water, sweat, lemonade, coffee, tea with sugar, and floodwater are significantly worse than clean water. They contain ions and contaminants that accelerate corrosion and short circuits.

Can both the phone and the data be saved?

Sometimes yes, but they are not the same goals. If data is most important, it may be safer to sacrifice the device and read the memory directly. If data is backed up and you mainly want the phone repaired, a different procedure is chosen.

If you have a wet phone, a liquid-damaged disk, or a device after a flood, do not start home experiments. Get in touch via contact, call +420 775 556 063, or write to zachranadat@ithope.cz. Our lab is in Brno-Židenice, and we accept cases in person and by courier from all over the Czech Republic.