Quote Originally Posted by mtbottle
Chances are that the contents of your HD will be fine, as the main board probably got fried by the cofee, and your HD shouldn't have been adversly affected.
Even if it doesn't function when you plug it into another computer/external case, all is not lost. You can go the desperate route of low level data recovery for $1,000,000,000 per MB, or try buying another identical HD and swapping over the control board (as the platters aren't gonna be in too bad shape, unless you drink cofee with iron fillings)
Yes, the harddrive was recovered, which was the most important thing, of course. The keyboard, the motherboard, and the DVD-ROM were fried. Repairing would have cost in excess of $1k. Not worth it, so I got a new one.

1GB RAM. 80GB HD. 15.4 WUXGA. 128MB video card. 8X DVD burner. 802.11a/b/g wireless card. Bluetooth. And.. wait for it.

And all for about the same price as my old one when I bought it two years ago.