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poke smot!
floccinocci floofinator



Registered: 01/08/03
Posts: 5,248
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The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD
#8238067 - 04/04/08 12:19 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Last night I noticed my computer going terribly slow. I figured out it was a bad drive when trying to do a directory listing of c:\. Each file/folder took a few minutes to list 
So once I did a cold restart, the drive was not visible using any of my recovery tools and some said unsettling things like "NTFS volume corrupted".
In an attempt to recover files modified since my last backup (a month ago today), I put the drive in the fridge. And once it was chilled, hooked it up again and lo, it works! It continued working long enough to recover the essentials.
This is probably the second or third time the freezer trick worked for me, on failing drives. It usually doesn't work, but in this instance it did, and saved me from losing a month of stuff.
So if your hard drive is died or making the clicks of death while locking up the computer, be sure you try the freezer trick before calling it a loss 
Edited by poke smot! (09/07/20 02:47 PM)
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supercollider
superconducting



Registered: 10/13/00
Posts: 1,234
Loc: Waxahachie
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD [Re: poke smot!]
#8239109 - 04/04/08 05:21 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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That's cool, I never heard of that trick before. I'll make that part of my pre-warranty ritual next time.
-------------------- Supercollider? I just met her!
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tak
geo's henchman




Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
Loc: nowhereland
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD [Re: supercollider]
#8240179 - 04/04/08 09:46 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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hell yeah man.
USB cable to drive in freezer has worked miracles for me. Gonna be trying it again soon on this recently lost drive. Hoping for 250gb worth of success.
-------------------- The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 8 days
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD [Re: tak]
#8241294 - 04/05/08 03:12 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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> USB cable to drive in freezer has worked miracles for me.
Wow, great idea. The problem I have with freezing drives (and it does work from time to time) is the condensation that forms on the cold drive. I always worry about shorting out something and killing the computer. By leaving the drive in the freezer via USB, this concern is mitigated. Nice.
I had a client a few months ago that brought me a laptop that he dropped into the ocean by mistake. It looked more like a block of salt than a laptop. Pulled the hard drive, removed the controller from the hard drive, and let the controller soak in distilled water for most of a day, changing the water every hour or so. Once dry, put the controller back on the hard drive and was able to retrieve the data. I was amazed the mechanics inside the drive still worked. I meant to open the drive and see if salt water had made it through the vent, but forgot. Too late now; the drive was tossed once the data was recovered.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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HagbardCeline
Student-Teacher-Student-Teacher



Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 10,028
Loc: Overjoyed, at the bottom ...
Last seen: 20 days, 18 hours
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD [Re: poke smot!]
#8255294 - 04/08/08 12:57 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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That's awesome. I too had never heard of this and will definitely recommend it to my musician friend. He has 5 or 6 hard drives full of songs that he was never able to recover. He kept them hoping to have the disposable funds to one day send them off for professional recovery.
Would doing this possibly do more damage and make that avenue harder were it not to work?
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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poke smot!
floccinocci floofinator



Registered: 01/08/03
Posts: 5,248
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD *DELETED* [Re: HagbardCeline]
#8258840 - 04/09/08 07:14 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Post deleted by poke smot!Reason for deletion: x
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 8 days
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Re: The freezer trick worked! Recovering bad HDD [Re: poke smot!]
#8258854 - 04/09/08 07:29 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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> This is not a problem in the winter or low humidity.
Depending upon where you live. Down here, winter is not much different than summer (especially from a humidity standpoint) and low humidity days don't really exist. On the plus side, we don't have many concerns about static electricity.
> Of course if you're planning on spending hundreds
Hundreds? I've never seen a recovery cost less than $1000 and they are usually in the $2500 range for larger drives. The company that I use is absolutely amazing in what they can recover; we sent them a half melted drive from a house fire and they were able to recover most of the data.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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