Help HTC Desire stuck on boot/keeps trying to boot

[Malin Andrea]

Hi! I know this question has been asked a million times, but I still can't seem to get my HTC Desire to boot again.
The problem started occurring last night when I was at a party and someone spilled a glass of water over my Desire. I know it was only water since it was my glass and I was the only one completely sober there. This did unfortunately happen while I was in another room but when I got back, I was quick to dry up my Desire with a cloth. The water damage indication on the battery is orange colored, but the one on the phone itself is still white.
At first it seemed okay, and booting was no problem. But then it rebooted itself and it showed a phone with an exclamation mark in a triangle in one corner.
I didn't know what to do so I restarted my Desire and booted into safe mode - even though I didn't push a single button apart from the power button.
I tried to get it out of safe mode but every time I restarted it, it kept booting into safe mode. I then discovered that the volume down button was stuck, but not physically. (The one just hung on vibration mode - vibrating without stopping.) I pushed the volume up button and then it stopped. When I pressed the volume down button, it wouldn't respond. I restarted the phone but the same thing happened over and over again. I eventually took out the battery and left it for a couple of hours.
When I got home it booted normally. But then it shut off by and rebooted into safe mode again by itself. I fully charged the phone and left it overnight with its battery out.
When I woke up this morning I tried to restart my Desire.
Now it won't get passed the first HTC boot screen. It just stays there until it restarts by itself and tries to boot again. I can no longer boot it into safe mode.
I tried to connect it to my laptop in order to reinstall Android 2.2. But the explorer won't recognize it and neither will HTC Sync. I've tried restarting my Desire with and without SD-card and SIM-card. But now it's just stuck.
I live in Norway and my cell phone carrier is Telenor. I got the Desire from my mom who bought it three years ago so I'm pretty sure it's out of warranty. (Even though it would either way be considering the water damage.)

I haven't got the faintest idea on what to do so if someone could help me out, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Malin Andrea]

I managed booting it into fastboot and tried recovery. It still got stuck on the HTC logo booting screen. Then I tried installing stock rom via SD-card. Now it's just vibrating seven times in a row really quickly and I can't boot it normally or get into fastboot.

 

[Hadron]

Seven vibrates is very bad. Usually means that the motherboard is damaged.

It's a bit late now, but maybe worth trying this anyway:

Remove the battery.

Place the phone in a sealed jar of dessicant for a couple of days. Uncooked rice is commonly used for this.

You want to make sure it is thoroughly dry before powering it up. There are no short cuts or quick fixes if a phone gets wet.

If you are lucky some water remaining in it was causing a short, and it will work when dry. Though if the software flash was corrupted you may have to do that again.

If you aren't lucky, it's time for a new phone

 

[kiwisine]

Take out SD and SIM card and boot by holding volume down and pressing power as same time. Then clear storage. I still retained everything that was on SIM and SD card but had to reconfigure phone settings and reload apps.
But worked.

 

[Hadron]

What, with a water-damaged phone that's doing the "7 vibrates motherboard failure" warning? Doing a factory reset like that will fix corrupted user-installed apps or settings preventing a boot, but can't fix corrupted system software or a hardware fault.

As the OP was no longer able to get into fastboot mode they'd not be able to do this anyway.