Hard Drive in the Freezer

[BudAshes]

I know this is totally not supposed to work, but I said fuck it and tried it anyway. I just got all 300gb of data off it and its not making the clicking sounds anymore

 

[SlowSpyder]

We've done that at work a number of times. Often with good results.

 

[jhansman]

I tried it with a hard drive I dropped on concrete, and it was a no go. Glad it worked for you.

 

[MiniDoom]

depends on the problem with the drive. if it's a corrupted partition table, it won't help. But if the bearings are seized up, the cold can make the metal contract enough to let the platters temporarily spin up.
I've dropped a failed disk on the floor before only to have it spin up long enough to get data off.

 

[NetWareHead]

Its worked for me in the past. What do you have to lose anyway? if it works, it sure beats professional data recovery and their prices

 

[Markbnj]

This is one of those fixes that always cause me to wonder what the hell the first person who discovered it was doing.

 

[highland145]

This is one of those fixes that always cause me to wonder what the hell the first person who discovered it was doing.

"What the hell. It's FUBARed anyway."

I think I remember putting batteries in the freezer as a kid. That was a long time ago so I don't even remember if it worked.

 

[schmuckley]

Drop it in LN2.

 

[Train]

This is one of those fixes that always cause me to wonder what the hell the first person who discovered it was doing.

Plausible explanation: Damaged drive was thrown in a box of junk and left in the unheated garage. Owner came across it later, while cold, and said what the hell, one last try before I throw it out. Boom.

 

[Markbnj]

Plausible explanation: Damaged drive was thrown in a box of junk and left in the unheated garage. Owner came across it later, while cold, and said what the hell, one last try before I throw it out. Boom.

Yep, you're probably right. Some odd coincidence like that is probably behind most discoveries. I mean, who knew that the old grape juice was worth keeping after it started tasting funny? Someone must have slugged some down by accident and was all "Hey now!"

 

[CPA]

Yep, you're probably right. Some odd coincidence like that is probably behind most discoveries. I mean, who knew that the old grape juice was worth keeping after it started tasting funny? Someone must have slugged some down by accident and was all "Hey now!"

Butter is the one thing that I always think about when it comes to "how did they think of this" thousands of years ago. Who thought "Hey, if I sit here and stir (or shake) this milk for hours on end, it will eventually solidify, and creamy goodness will be the result."?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Thanks for reminding me of that OP. My brother sent me his PC because it wouldn't boot into windows one day and I determined that the HDD was at fault. I was feeling guilty about the fact that I was probably going to have to send him the computer back with a clean windows install without his steam games on them. That's something I can try before I give up on recovering his old data.

Question for the OP: When you heard the drive clicking, was it only when the computer was first turned on? That's what my bros PC did.

 

[pete6032]

Butter is the one thing that I always think about when it comes to "how did they think of this" thousands of years ago. Who thought "Hey, if I sit here and stir (or shake) this milk for hours on end, it will eventually solidify, and creamy goodness will be the result."?

Or cow's milk. The guy that discovered cow's milk, what the hell was he doing? :'(

 

[BudAshes]

Thanks for reminding me of that OP. My brother sent me his PC because it wouldn't boot into windows one day and I determined that the HDD was at fault. I was feeling guilty about the fact that I was probably going to have to send him the computer back with a clean windows install without his steam games on them. That's something I can try before I give up on recovering his old data.

Question for the OP: When you heard the drive clicking, was it only when the computer was first turned on? That's what my bros PC did.

This was an external drive and it was making constant clicking noises. It's still totally quiet and working after being plugged in for like 6 hours now. I'm still going to throw it away, but I have to say it seems like it's functioning normally despite being pretty hot now.

 

[Thebobo]

Try the toaster to

 

[Markbnj]

Or cow's milk. The guy that discovered cow's milk, what the hell was he doing? :'(

Lol. Probably trying not to starve.

 

[Mixolydian]

I've tried it several times. Never worked.

 

[lxskllr]

It's worked before for me. I currently have a hd in the freezer waiting for me to get to it. I did the freezer trick with it before, and got a bunch of data off, but didn't have enough storage to get everything. In the meantime, my daughter knocked it on the floor. I now have the space for the recovery, but I'm not feeling good about success. It'll be the last chance before the magnets get removed, and I toss the drive. I just need to get around to doing it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I heard about this trick too. There's a few occasions I tried it and it did not work, but I figure it does not hurt to try, probably really depends how the drive is damaged. If it's the bearings/motor it may help, if it's the head, you're screwed either way.

I had a drive with ddrescue running for several weeks, the freezer trick did help enough to at least keep the drive up though. Before it would just die within a few minutes. I think the head was done on that drive though, it started off good then after a while it was all errored data it was getting. Can't even mount the NTFS partition due to all the errors, though I need to find a way to present it to windows as a raw drive as the native scandisk may potentially fix the errors. Maybe through Qemu I can do it.

 

[SKORPI0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad1uVAB5bNADispelling the Myth: Freezer Based Hard Drive Data Recovery :awe:
Dead Hard Drive? Lost Data? Try the Freezer Method! Linus Tech Tips

 

[pmv]

Try the toaster to

Nah, that's only for defunct graphics cards. Or... are those supposed to go in the washing machine?

Tumble-driers fix bad RAM though, I'm pretty sure of that one.

 

[Red Squirrel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad1uVAB5bNADispelling the Myth: Freezer Based Hard Drive Data Recovery :awe:
Dead Hard Drive? Lost Data? Try the Freezer Method! Linus Tech Tips

LOL huge block of ice, I never even thought of trying that. It would stay cool longer. You'd want to ensure the drive is very well sealed though. Freeze it with the connectors already on it.

Also, if you're going to do the freezer trick it's a good idea to bring the humidity down in the house/room you will be working in. In winter this is as simple as turning off the humidifier and leaving the furnace run for a while. In summer it might be a bit harder unless you have central AC.

What I found interesting of that video too is how fast the head can move back and forth, there was a line going straight across, I did not figure it moved that fast. (have to remember that platter is spinning at 7200rpm).

 

[eng2d2]

Mine has been in the freezer for 6 months now. I tried it for one week and it never worked so I left it there now for 6 m onths so I will give it a shot again.

 

[NoTine42]

Butter is the one thing that I always think about when it comes to "how did they think of this" thousands of years ago. Who thought "Hey, if I sit here and stir (or shake) this milk for hours on end, it will eventually solidify, and creamy goodness will be the result."?

Then there's cheese. I think it took a monk going on a trip with basically a goat stomach flask full of milk...which happened to be the magic combination of milk and enzymes resulting in a more potable milk, cheese

 

[Kaido]

I've done this at least 15 or 20 times. It's worked in more than 50% of the cases, allowing me to recover the data where previously I could not. One time I REALLY needed to get the data off this hard drive, so I sandwiched it between two lunchbox freezer packs (after freezing the drive itself) and was able to get it off, because it kept warming up & corrupting. The ice pack trick worked