Salt water in phone

paul bullock, first off skip the rice. It is absolutely useless. It will not help you fix your phone. All it does it provides a false sense of security. It will not clean your phone, it will not prevent corrosion. Second, there is no hard drive. The files ared store on some solid state memory IC which is hardwired to your logic board. No way to access the files by a normal DIY'er unless the phone turns on and gets recognized.

Salt Water will get your components to corrode very severely. The very first thing I would do is to disassemble your phone. Since we are not sure which phone you have, we can not provide any guides for now. Take a careful and close look at all components and connectors. Truly assess the damage. Look for major corrosion, evaluate the pins in the connectors etc,. Take a look at all connectors as well as cable ends. After that I would suggest that you clean it a couple of times in sterile water, not drinking water (that might have helped right after it got submerged in the sale water). Use a soft brush and clean it very, very thouroughly with the sterile water. With the amount of corrosion that I envision, you will most certainly have to remove all the EMI shields. Once you got the gross contamination cleaned, use 90%+ isopropyl alcohol and clean your parts some more. For a proper cleaning, use this guide. It was written for a Apple iPhone 3G but it is still pertinent to your phone as well. I can not stress the importance of a good cleaning enough, so do it over and over while replacing the alcohol after each cleaning. Do not use compressed air for the cleaning since that can drive liquid as well as corrosion particles into areas that will cause trouble later on. Do not use drinking water, if you need to use water, use sterile water. Also, you do not need to leave it to dry for a day. Isopropyl alcohol in the higher concentration will evaporate quickly and dissipate the water. The importance here is the cleaning. Do not forget to replace the battery. This is a must and not an option. It will fail if you do not take care of it now. Keep in mind that water damage is the hardest to troubleshoot and to repair. Hope this helps, good luck.