Safe to retrieve data from messed up mp3 player?
 

fell in a puddle of mud today, and not only did my legs, hands, pants and part of my shirt get soaked in mud, but so did my Philips GoGear mp3 player. It's done for - the turn-on logo was fixed on the lcd screen until it wiped the battery out; it wouldn't respond to any buttons. There's clumpy mud inside the whole thing. I opened it up and I don't think there's a prayer for it.

However, I would very much like to be able to retrieve the 7 gb of mp3s that are on that flash drive inside the thing. My question for those of you who know how USB devices work (from an electrical point of view I guess) is whether you think it would be safe to try and connect the device to my PC via USB cable to retrieve data from the flash memory. My concern is, if there's mud or whatnot in there, can it shortcircuit something and maybe burn out my PC's usb controller or the whole motherboard? I don't really know how the power connections in these devices work.

Normally I'd say screw it and forget about it, but a lot of those mp3s I don't have on my PC anymore. Rebuilding all those playlists is something I'd like to be able to avoid if possible.

What do you think?

Wash it out with isopropyl alcohol, let it dry and then pull the tunes off via usb.

Like Psycho Dad said, but make sure to wash it very thoroughly, with the battery disconnected and let it dry for a day to be sure. Even though you are using alcohol, to be safe, let it dry quite a while. I would put it under a fan. Good luck!

Nobody can sit here and guarantee you it won't fry your whole motherboard, but it is unlikely. Probably it will just work or it won't. Good suggestions above. If it doesn't work it might be technically possible, if difficult, to recover the flash memory.

Good point about disconnecting the battery Leaving it connected will likely negate trying to clean it.

I once attempted to retrieve data from thumbdrive/usb flash drive (or what these things are called) that fell in a puddle and stepped on. I was lucky as the drive got really hot but nothing else was damaged.
If you have a cheap (compared with motherbord) USB hub, use that instead of connecting directly to the computer.

Yours
Zweiblumen