laptop damaged and worried about not getting paid!

nadimmu

OK so this is what happened:
I have been using my HP laptop since June, i recently moved to Griffith's Accommodation, i got my room and found out it didnt have a network port except that one port in the kitchen/living room. I've been using my laptop in the living room table (thats about 2 metres away from the kitchen) since september.
Recently one of my roommates spilt water on my laptop, its dead. just dead. i lost all my files, assignments, homework, pictures, music, etc. he left it on, didnt bother to turn it off until he went to bed.
I called his parents and they said they would pay only half the price of the laptop because it was my fault in the first place leaving it out on the living room coffee table.
Im telling them to pay for the damages and pay for the full laptop price.
Am i right for telling them to pay the full price? i
dont see how this is my fault in the first place?
the laptop has been there for a long time, with no problems.:mad:

Doctor DooM

His parents aren't really responsible at all, what does the roommate say?

KdjaCL

the hard drive is till recoverable so you lost nothing really just the power to boot into windows.

Any half decent pc fixer will get every single item off that hard drive and onto a new one for 50 quid.

You left the laptop there so assumed they would use it, dont see why anyone should pay for something they didnt mean, if they did fair play.


kdjac

mikemac

Your laptop is 9 months old, they devalue fast.
It's not worth what you paid for it. Much the same way as if you buy a new car and crash it two years later you get the current price.

50% might not be fair but looking for 100% is not fair either

Doctor DooM

KdjaCL wrote: »

the hard drive is till recoverable so you lost nothing really just the power to boot into windows.

Any half decent pc fixer will get every single item off that hard drive and onto a new one for 50 quid.

You left the laptop there so assumed they would use it, dont see why anyone should pay for something they didnt mean, if they did fair play.


kdjac

You can download a 2.5 inch caddy from komplett.ie which will allow you to access the hard disk like an external HDD. Might be something to think abot OP.

nadimmu

well the roommates told his parents about the problem, so they can pay for it. he did admit in the end that he did it. the other roommates that live there say i shouldnt pay a cent, since it wasnt my fault

Boston

You left it on the kitchen table. Your fault.

muppetkiller

Ya like poster above said you haven't lost your harddrive and should be able to recover it easily enough.
And you are partially to blame for leaving your laptop in a Kitchen area..

mikemac

KdjaCL wrote: »

You left the laptop there so assumed they would use it, dont see why anyone should pay for something they didnt mean, if they did fair play.

Huh?
At the risk of going offtopic, your neighbours kid didn't mean to puck a sliotar through your window. The kids parents shouldn't pay and you'd replace the window out of your phoca?

dr.bollocko

Well it can depend on the extent of the water damage. I certainly think it would be appropriate for them to replace the laptop with one of a matching spec, considering that the thing is FUBAR, damaged beyond use, it is an ex-laptop, joined teh choir invisibule, etc.

As regards the lost files, it is possible that the HDD is ok you know. If you turn over the laptop, its normally the right corner, sealed in place by two screws. (Screws should have a drum like logo next to them) Remove this now just in case it is still intact, at least try and save those files regardless!
You could also buy an external HDD casing and turn this possibly still working HDD into a cool tiny USB drive. Then shove this tiny cool USB HDD in your friends face and start ranting about how he couldnt destroy you!

Doctor DooM

nadimmu wrote: »

well the roommates told his parents about the problem, so they can pay for it. he did admit in the end that he did it. the other roommates that live there say i shouldnt pay a cent, since it wasnt my fault

Legally no idea, but if I were you I would check what the going rate for a laptop with te same stats as yours is on Dell, and ask for that. As mentioned above, laptops depreciate fast.

nadimmu

i did buy an enclosure, the HD spins, but it isnt read by any computer i've used, even with the drivers installed.
when the guy at right-click opened the hard drives IDE inclosure, we found water vapour, which may have damaged it.

Doctor DooM

nadimmu wrote: »

i did buy an enclosure, the HD spins, but it isnt read by any computer i've used, even with the drivers installed.
when the guy at right-click opened the hard drives IDE inclosure, we found water vapour, which may have damaged it.

You might be done then... thats really bad luck.

KdjaCL

hard drives are fairly strong devices, you should move that part of the thread to Comp tech as every hard is recoverable unless its smelted


2nd part i still reckon its your fault, when i shared a house my tv was the main one i left it in the living room 32" WS tv, other lads broke it one day. they paid up but thats cos we were mates and i never asked them as i left the tv int he sitting room and it got broke due to ehh stuff happening ( golf ball went tru it as they were practicing their swing).



kdjac

TerrorFirmer

In fairness, asking for them to pay for the full original laptop price is outrageous. However, it is his fault, and I would be after the person who split water on it to pay partial costs of a similar laptop - was he using it when he split water on it? I don't think you'd have a case for the cost of a new laptop, seeing as you left it out on the kitchen table, an area in which people are inevitably going to eat and drink...

the_syco

nadimmu wrote: »

Im telling them to pay for the damages and pay for the full laptop price.
Am i right for telling them to pay the full price? i
dont see how this is my fault in the first place?
the laptop has been there for a long time, with no problems.:mad:

50% is pretty good, as the notebook would be worth maybe half the amount it was then, if even that. As KdjaCL said, you can get your stuff off easy enough.

Oh, and you mention him leaving the notebook on. Maybe he A) didn't notice that he had spilt stuff on it, or he didn't think it was damaged.

Finally: I hope in future you backup your stuff. This is a "minor" problem, and your files can be gotten back. It's minor, as opposed to your hard drive dying, where everything goes down the drain.

/edit
Read the new posts. Ah well, should still be able to get it back. leave the stuff to fry for a few days, and then check it again.

Wibbs

nadimmu wrote: »

i did buy an enclosure, the HD spins, but it isnt read by any computer i've used, even with the drivers installed.
when the guy at right-click opened the hard drives IDE inclosure, we found water vapour, which may have damaged it.

If it spins chances are very high it can be recovered. There's a crowd on the north side of dublin whose name escapes that will get the data back. There's a few services online and overseas that will do the same thing. Costs a few quid. naturally way more expensive in Ireland.

Jack B. Badd

Do you have home contents insurance? Or do your parents? If they do, you should check to see if it's covered on their policy - mine was covered when I was at college even though I wasn't living at home.

KdjaCL

Wibbs wrote: »

If it spins chances are very high it can be recovered. There's a crowd on the north side of dublin whose name escapes that will get the data back. There's a few services online and overseas that will do the same thing. Costs a few quid. naturally way more expensive in Ireland.

lol i do it for large bottles of bulmers


kdjac

the_syco

Jack B. Badd wrote: »

Do you have home contents insurance? Or do your parents? If they do, you should check to see if it's covered on their policy - mine was covered when I was at college even though I wasn't living at home.

It also depends if they said you were or were not living at home

humanji

As was said above, you should still be able to get some info off. Try going to the IT department. But what got me was:
[quote=KdjaCL[]( golf ball went tru it as they were practicing their swing)[/quote]

Jesus Christ, I can only assume you had them reported for termination for being: A) stupid enough to practice their swing indoors, and usinga ball!!!

testicle

If your own parents have house contents insurance, of the variety that allows you to insure items that are often removed from the house (i.e. engagement/wedding rings, or laptops ) you could claim off that. You won't get 100% off that either now mind, as they have an excess.

jhegarty

If he is over 18 then his parents don't have to pay anything....

Sundy

If he broke your laptop he should pay to replace it with a simlar spec laptop.

If you leave your car parked on the street and someone crashes into and writes it off, should they not pay for it because you left it somewhere that an accident could happen? he broke it, now he should pay for his carelessness

Overheal

I dont see how this falls into PI but yeah the files are grand; the lappy is kerput sadly. You can salvage the battery (hope ya bought a fancy one), the HDD and after that youre fairly screwed. You can get a cheap cable to plug into the hard drive and then you can read the data through any USB port.

nadimmu

Yeh i'll try the enclosure again, i just dont have a computer near me at this stage, the computer labs are closed on weekends, and the ones at the computer lab wont read it.
The laptop and its data are both important to me, i got that laptop for university, and now since i lost my data i cant hand in my assignment on time. i did have a back up but its an old one, i was going to back up my laptop at the end of that week but he fried it.
I even asked numurous people, they said he should fully pay for it, it was his fault for spilling water, how can it be my fault for putting it on the living room table, as his mother says that was my fault! i mean wtf, this is driving me around the bend

Overheal

I dont see how youre at fault for leaving it out. It wasnt a great idea granted but when he has already admitted to the damage, well, there you go. Sort out how much an identical spec laptop will cost you and work from there.

I assume youre not covered by accidental, then.

Faith

Boston wrote: »

You left it on the kitchen table. Your fault.

+1, tbh.

In first year, my friend spilt a glass of wine all over my laptop that was on my desk in my bedroom. It was completely destroyed and I bought the new one. Maybe she should have paid some, but I didn't force her to.

It's harsh, but let it be a lesson to you to be more careful. I won't let anyone near my laptop with liquid now, and I'm very cautious about where I leave it.

Ishindar

put the lappy in the hot press for a couple of days there is a decent chance it will work after that.

Sam Vimes

KdjaCL wrote: »

You left the laptop there so assumed they would use it, dont see why anyone should pay for something they didnt mean, if they did fair play.

so if i crash my car into yours and write it off, i don't have to pay a cent because i didn't mean it? score

axer

Faith wrote: »

In first year, my friend spilt a glass of wine all over my laptop that was on my desk in my bedroom. It was completely destroyed and I bought the new one. Maybe she should have paid some, but I didn't force her to.

In that case your friend should definitely have paid for the new laptop as it is reasonable to expect that you would put your laptop on your desk in your bedroom.

OP: It doesnt matter who you ask for opinion as I am sure they are all biased when they hear only your side of the story.

I think your room mate is partly responsible but not entirely. You are mostly responsible as a living room coffee table is not the place to put a laptop - it is a place where drinks and food are expected to be left on (hence the name) thus you brought about the risk of your laptop getting damaged yourself.

If I were you I would stop throwing a childish tantrum and realise that YOU, yes YOU, are the one that is mostly to blame. I guarantee you if you brought them to court the judge would definitely rule against you although he/she might give partially damages but there is no way in the world you would get 100%.

If I were you I would accept the 50% as your laptop probably wasn't even worth 50% of what you paid for it 9 months ago now. Go and price a similiar spec laptop now and check the price difference.

Follow other the other poster's advice about waiting for the harddrive to fully dry before trying it again.

Take it as a life lesson - always backup for data and never leave things in a place where they are likely to get damaged.

The Corinthian

No one is going to court over this. Does anyone here even know under what laws or procedures this would even fall under? My guess is that even if you did bring him to court, the court costs would dwarf the cost of the laptop. Additionally, if over 18, he can just claim he can't afford to pay and you'll end up awarded €5 p.w.

So was it your fault or his or somewhere in-between? The answer is 'who cares'. The best you're likely to get is half the price - I don't think you have any other options. Tough.

Put it down to experience. Never trust a flatmate who you feel may not be responsible - so this means next time don't leave a laptop in harms way when you share with a moron.

Overheal

Ishindar wrote: »

put the lappy in the hot press for a couple of days there is a decent chance it will work after that.

a fine post for the hall of shame here.

Ishindar

Overheal wrote: »

a fine post for the hall of shame here.

eh? im an electronic engineer with 15 years experience in maintenance at the top level.

dr.bollocko

Bully for you!



OP The one thing I will say is that it sucks you lost your files, but at least from now on, particularly with University data, Back it up! Again and again and again. It could be a situation where the climax of your education is dependant on whether or not some fool spills something on your PC, or just that the PC burns out. I know it sucks, but from now on, backup all important data. There's no use crying over spilt megabytes.

gamer

Put the laptop ,on adverts .ie ,for sale as broken laptop, parts, sum1 with the same model,will buy ,it as spares, psu,memory is worth sumthing, say you get 70,take 70 off price,plus 70for your fault, ie leaving laptop,on, on a kitchen table is asking for trouble.Thats 140, so ask em for 350, laptop shops,dell sell brand new 1,s for 500euro.get 10metre network cable,maplins ,use that to plug into kitchen socket.PUT hardrive near rad to dry it out.

board om

if you were claiming off your house insurance then you wouldnt get the full price you paid for the laptop nearly a year later. you would get the price of what it would cost to buy the same laptop today. so you can hardly expect his parents to pay you the amount you paid nearly a year ago. that is just unreasonable.

as for calling your room mates parents in the first place, very childish. your in college now and supposed to be standing on your own too feet. sort it out between yourself and your room mate without bringing parents into it. it is called being an adult. wen you are finsihed your degree and you go job hunting, if you dont get the job you want are you going tell your parents about the mean interviewer who didnt give you the job?

you could as another posted said claim it on your parents house insurance. even if it isnt named as an item that is covered outside the home. most household policies have a certain value they cover items outside of the home for. it might only be €1500 or it could be €10k. you would have to check it out.

the other thing i would do is check out what insurance is on the Griffith builiding. you might find that they have content insurance on the builiding wich means students items may be covered. if thats the case then problem solved. that would actually be my first call before i did anything else. and dont tell them it happened days ago becaue a lot of the time you have to report it within 24 hours.

good luck with it.

Overheal

Ishindar wrote: »

eh? im an electronic engineer with 15 years experience in maintenance at the top level.

In my own experience electronics just arent the same after liquid spills. Partially usable yes, but certainly impaired. Certainly worth a shot but to be honest this detracts from the need to get the lappy replaced by the OPs room mate.

Dr.Bollocko wrote:

OP The one thing I will say is that it sucks you lost your files, but at least from now on, particularly with University data, Back it up! Again and again and again. It could be a situation where the climax of your education is dependant on whether or not some fool spills something on your PC, or just that the PC burns out. I know it sucks, but from now on, backup all important data. There's no use crying over spilt megabytes.

oh yes, thats the truth. Had a project on my USB key, plugged into the front port of my PC. Come home langers drunk one night, use my foot to power on the PC in the pitch black and then all I hear is *crunch* - I'm after snapping the piece of **** in two Now I have 2 external Hard Drives where I store copies of all of my vital data.

nadimmu

Im not expecting his parents to pay for what i paid for almost a year ago, im tryin to tell them to pay for how much it costs today.
i didnt call his parents. he did. sorry if i didnt make that clear.
I dont have house insurance in ireland, only back home in Dubai, the insurace companies there wouldnt bother sending inspectors all the way to ireland.
i already am working, he isnt, he hasnt gone to college since november and has been gettin money off his parents to just party away.

btw thanks for the help, dont get me wrong, but it kinda opened my eyes a little bit. i'll go to the griffith office tomorrow and tell them.

board om

nadimmu wrote: »

Im not expecting his parents to pay for what i paid for almost a year ago, im tryin to tell them to pay for how much it costs today.
i didnt call his parents. he did. sorry if i didnt make that clear.
I dont have house insurance in ireland, only back home in Dubai, the insurace companies there wouldnt bother sending inspectors all the way to ireland.
i already am working, he isnt, he hasnt gone to college since november and has been gettin money off his parents to just party away.

btw thanks for the help, dont get me wrong, but it kinda opened my eyes a little bit. i'll go to the griffith office tomorrow and tell them.

sorry man, i assumed you called the parents which was unfair of me. my apologies.

i would defintily chase up with Griffith. they must have some kind of Content Insurance. if they do your sorted.

also, dont stop checking it out just becuase your house insurance is in dubai. i know in ireland some items on your house insurance would be covered abroad so check out if it is the same in dubai. they wouldnt send an assessor to assess a laptop, they would probably just look for a receipt from where you tried to get it repaired but the shop said it was beyond economic repair. they only send out assessors if it is a claim relating to the structure of the building.

but personaly i would be following up on the possibility that you may be covered under Griffith.

good luck

craichoe

Overheal wrote: »

a fine post for the hall of shame here.

He's 100% correct on that one, nearly any electronic device will work after being dried out, however it may require a certain amount of dismantling, in this case it was just water (hopefully) which in 99% of situations will work after drying.

I've had 2 mobile phones, a laptop, a keyboard (hell i've washed a keyboard in a sink with de-ionised water)

Plug it out, take off the keyboard, battery, memory cover, hardrive and any other external parts you can, leave it in the hot press for 2 - 3 days and re-assemble. Chances are it will turn on.

The harddrive is a different story, their normally hermatically sealed but have a breather hole on the top, its possible some moisture could have gotten in this way. That would be a professional job to ensure the data isn't damaged.

At the end of the day a laptop is a just an electronic device like a pocket calculator, mobile phone, remote control and it only runs on low voltage anyway.

I'd say moving this to the HW forum might be appropriate, from looking at the posts alot of people don't have a clue what their talking about here.

Also, if somebody damages your property, they are liable. A Portable (Manufaturers no longer refer to them as laptops for various reasons) is a portable device, there is no specific instructions on where they should be used, living room, garden, train, plane etc. The environment is irrelevant, the damage that was caused, was not caused by you and you should not have to pay out for the consequences of someone elses actions.

The housemate should pay out for equipment that will allow you to perform the same tasks that you performed before with this device, that may be through repair, replacment or financial compensation.

dudara

Not a PI.

Moved to Laptops - mods, apologies if this isn't the right home.

To the OP - you were a wee bit of an eejit to leave a laptop in a kitchen. Consider it a lesson learned. Accidents do happen.

BostonB

Accept the offer and learn the lesson.

Tom Dunne

Moved from Laptops.

Seemed the more appropriate place for it, apart from the Recycle bin, that is.

Thirdfox

Lol - this thread has gone on a fine trip hasn't it?

Not suitable for this thread either as the OP would be asking for legal advice...

Our man in Havana

Naughty, legal advice is a no no here.

weeder

and it lands in ah

i would suggest not putting it in the hot press as the added heat would make the components expand and possibly damage it more leave it somewhere that stays room temprature all the time ,as another poster said, hard disks are sealed, so you could find another hard disk of the same make and model and swap the external pcb and it might work. though if it was left on i would say the pcb is definitely friend and you need a new one

if your laptop had a bios password it might of also locked the hard disk (the unlock code being the bios password) and a locked hard disk would spin up, show in device manager as working fine but you wouldnt be able to read anything off it though i think its only IDE drives that are lockable and being that new might have a sata hdd.

Ishindar

craichoe wrote: »

He's 100% correct on that one, nearly any electronic device will work after being dried out, however it may require a certain amount of dismantling, in this case it was just water (hopefully) which in 99% of situations will work after drying.

I've had 2 mobile phones, a laptop, a keyboard (hell i've washed a keyboard in a sink with de-ionised water)

Plug it out, take off the keyboard, battery, memory cover, hardrive and any other external parts you can, leave it in the hot press for 2 - 3 days and re-assemble. Chances are it will turn on.

The harddrive is a different story, their normally hermatically sealed but have a breather hole on the top, its possible some moisture could have gotten in this way. That would be a professional job to ensure the data isn't damaged.

At the end of the day a laptop is a just an electronic device like a pocket calculator, mobile phone, remote control and it only runs on low voltage anyway.

I'd say moving this to the HW forum might be appropriate, from looking at the posts alot of people don't have a clue what their talking about here.

Also, if somebody damages your property, they are liable. A Portable (Manufaturers no longer refer to them as laptops for various reasons) is a portable device, there is no specific instructions on where they should be used, living room, garden, train, plane etc. The environment is irrelevant, the damage that was caused, was not caused by you and you should not have to pay out for the consequences of someone elses actions.

The housemate should pay out for equipment that will allow you to perform the same tasks that you performed before with this device, that may be through repair, replacment or financial compensation.

reminds me of a funny incident at work long time ago(14 years), when i used to work on dublin bus ticket machines.
we got this machine in one day that had fallen into a hedge and was forgotten for a week. it was eventually pulled out of the hedge and sent into us. needless to say it was full of water and moss had started growing on it etc. we emptied it out, dried it off and turned it upsidedown in the corner to dry fully for a few days. we then scrubbed off the corrosion etc and powered it up and low and behold it worked :cool:

from a technical point of view. the enemy here is corrosion of connections. HDD is sealed and is an electromechnical device so it can survive some water. Mobos and ram and ics are all sprayed with lacker during manufacturing which protects from water damage and corrosion. the main vunerability is corrosion on connections.
its also significant weither the Lappy was powered up or not at the time of the water spill as connections could short circuit if it was powered up.
even still i would give it a good chance of working after a few days in the hotpress

Banana_montana

It's nobodys fault, it was an accident, and if *I* had spilt the water I'd personally offer to pay towards getting it fixed but if you called my parents and demanded them to pay full price I'd have serious words with you. Anyway you are sharing the house, take the laptop into your room. A kitchen is a STUPID place to keep your laptop.

axer

Banana_montana wrote: »

A kitchen is a STUPID place to keep your laptop.

Exactly, both the housemate and the OP messed up and are both to blame but I would say the OP is moreso to blame. If someone leaves their car parked in the middle of the road and someone comes around the corner and hits it then I think the person liable for the damages is the person who stupidly left it in a completely inappropriate place. Thats why i think the housemate's parents offering to pay 50% is more than fair. Although if I was the housemate and the OP threw a tantrum like he is doing then I would tell him to go f'uck himself and not pay anything.

Demonique

KdjaCL wrote: »

dont see why anyone should pay for something they didnt mean,
kdjac

You sound like a parent whose child has just broken something belonging to someone else, I'm always hearing "but he didn't meannnn it" and "but he's only a chiiiiiild"