This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
As I emptied the laundry from the washing machine this morning I noticed something small and brightly coloured wedged against the rubber seal by the door and realised with horror that it was the USB flash drive that had been in the pocket of my jeans. 
“Oops”, I thought (or something similar that can’t be repeated in front of the kids), “I didn’t mean to do that…”.
Well, after a few hours in my pocket, making sure that it stayed warm and dry, I decided to try and use the device and it seems everything is fine. Probably not recommended though.
My brother had the same “experience” :-) Both of you were really lucky.
Makes three of us that are really lucky as i did exactly the same thing..
The only difference in my case is that it went through the tumble drier as well!!
It was one of the first USB drives i ever owned and it still works to this day
Yeah, I should point out that the title of this post should not be taken too literally… your mileage my vary.
For those who really would like to waterproof a thumbdrive, check out the Systm podcast episode on the subject.
And apparently it might still fail due to rust… a little WD40 does the trick, or so I’m told.
there really isnt anything in a flashdrive that could not be washed. as long as the drive is dry again before you plug it in it will not be damaged by water. I had a few washed and tumbled and they still work.
It might be worth mentioning that iPod Nanos however, can not be washed – even in a cool 15 degrees wash.
Oh no… Simon… you didn’t… did you?
yeah… it was the old one mk2 one. That said, it was a free gift with a phone contract and the person responsible did allow me to splash out on a 60gb 5G iPod – so when all’s said and done, it was quite a good thing to happen!