Need cell phone/computer help. Aaargh!
 

These thing I know are true;

1) Many cell phones are not waterproof.

2) If your recently amphibious cell phone will not power up, you cannot retrieve the 250 phone numbers that you used to have at your fingertips.

3) The computer brand e-machines? I'm pretty sure the "e" does not stand for "excellent".

Anyway, my Motorola V505 took a bath. Too bad, loved the phone. Cingular tells me that they cannot retrieve my number list. I asked if we could take the SIM card out and put it in a different phone. They said the numbers were stored on a hard drive, not the SIM card, so no help there.

I remembered that when I got the phone, I loaded the numbers onto an e-machines PC! The program is Motorola PhoneTools and if the old PC hadn't met an untimely electronic demise, my problems would be over. I could load my new phone, Moto Razr Z3 with my numbers. The problem with the PC is that it simply won't power up. I suspect it's the power unit.

Anyway, can I just get one of those little firewire hard-drive cases that act as a peripheral hard drive and retrieve the PhoneTools data into a working PC?

Any other ideas?

You need some way of booting that eMachine, since the data will most likely be in a file somewhere that only the application knows about and can read. Another option would be to install the app on your current computer, and find all the files it created/modified. That will tell you where to look on the old drive, so you can then stick it in another computer and get all the files needed.

Take the hard drive out and put it into another computer, or do the USB trick with it. Get the data and enjoy.

My understanding is you may save numbers in two ways. First on the hard drive or second on the SIM card. Me, I transfered the SIM card from one phone to the next, after saving hte numbers on the SIM card, and the numbers transfered perfectly.

I lost phone to a fish tank. Luckily they replaced the phone free as it happened about a week after signing up for the service. I inquired about the water prrof phones and wasgiven the answer in a round-about way that the phone companies know phones are suseptible to water damage but refuse to do anything about it. Selling phones to persons locked into a sales contract is big profit.

I dunno, my motorola V635i gives me the choice to save to either the SIM or the internal memory. I always save to the SIM so that I can carry the numbers to my next phone. It might be worth a shot anyways?...
Otherwise, either swap out the power supply, or pull the hard drive and put it in another system/external enclosure.

Unfortunately the Emachine likely has a proprietary power supply. I'd still think a local IT geek could wire in a substitute enough to retrieve your data. Or as mentioned put the E-hard drive into anothe rmachine.

If you'd like pop in the mail and ship to me. I'll have a band of nerds on it in no time flat.

Given ample time to dry, most submerged electronics will dry out and function fine. Especially cell phones.
It's sometimes hard to get all of the Mississippi mud out of the little holes, however...

My i60c took a swim a few months back. I pulled out the SIM card, popped it in my new i530, and it works fine.

For extra insurance, I bought a USB cable for my new phone and backed up the number on my home PC.

It worked!

Hard drive in a case with USB connection. Downloaded PhoneTools data to good PC, connected with the phone via bluetooth and downloaded the #'s.

Victory, sweet victory!

Now take the phone, remove the battery, and give it a rubbing alchohol bath / cleaning. Then let it dry for a day or two and see if it works ;)

When this happens... get the battery out of the phone asap! You can wash, towel dry, then position the handset up over a delicate heat source and let it completely dry out... don't rush! Throw it up on the dash of the car in the afternoon sun... this works well. Never had one not recovery... Don't tell anyone where it's been and all is well!

emachines are as generic as they get...