So I go to my buddies house to try and boot my computer off of his windows cd, I turn on the computer, open the cd drive and....the mouse icon appears windows starts, and all my settings and files appear before my eyes in perfect color, actually maybe a little faster than it was before...could coke be to Gateways like marijuana is to canadian snowboarders? A performance enhancing drug?
I haven't heard too many stories of HDs actually being rendered inoperable by water damage, so the actual HD device is probably OK.
Of course, I'm going to also assume that you're talking about the data on the HD, because that is much more valuable, irreplaceable, etc.
In its death throes, a CPU, like an organic brain, sends off any and all signals. That being the case, you just have to hope that the CPU isn't entirely dead, but if it is, that it didn't send signals to the HD to erase or overwrite data. I can't really give you a statistical answer.
Strangely enough your system board is detecting that an IDE device is connected (like your HD or CD drive), but not the software on it. Try booting off of a CD to see if you have any luck of salvaging the machine. Before any of this though, if you haven't already tried turning it on a number of times, let it dry out for at least 24 hours before turning it on.
Most likely you've fried the system board. My condolences.
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