Freezing your HD

[AnthroAndStargate]

I have read and heard from many places that freezing a HD that is making the clicking sound and is not recognized by the laptop (or desktop) is a good way to possibly get it to work for 30 min (long enough to get data off).

I froze my laptop hard drive and ploped it in after about 4 hours of freeze and while it did not click it made a slow rotation noise and still was not recognized.

Any tips/hints/suggestions on the time I should freeze it for, etc?

Thanks a ton! Hopefully I can get the data I forgot to backup back! 😉

 

[Astray]

I believe you're SOL.

 

[Looney]

Sometimes you get lucky, and other times you don't. I was able to use the freezer trick on one drive awhile back, then last month, i had another drive that had the same problem... freezing it did what it did with you... very slow spins with the clicking gone, but couldn't access it.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Freezer trick sometimes works with bad spindle bearings, sometimes not. 4 hours is plenty if it was going to work.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Search & read before you post 😉 http://hddguru.com/

I have not had this problem............Yet.


...Galvanized

 

[kzrssk]

I tried freezing a hard drive once. Didn't do a thing to help. One of my friends tried it recently though on a clicking hard drive, and it's worked fine ever since, though if it were me, I wouldn't have trusted it afterwards. *shrugs*

 

[Laputa]

Freezing it will only work if there's a bearing issue. If the disk surface is damaged, or the board has issues, that may make the matter worse. Just gotta to know what you are doing from experience.

 

[MisterJackson]

Have you tried different angles? Sometimes sitting the hdd on it's side or even upside down will yeild results.

Even beating the drive a bit sometimes works for me. You have nothing to lose at this point, so.....