have a hard drive that is about dead

[SAWYER]

It has some file so it I am trying to copy to my desktop. I pulled it out of my pc and hooked it up to the ide/sata to usb adapter and every time I plug it in it shows up and I can browse and transfer some files then it messes up. Is there is any software I can try to run on it?

 

[ronbo613]

Overheating is a cause of failure with hard drives. Don't laugh now, but put the drive in a ziploc baggie and stick in in the freezer for awhile until it's nice and cold, take it out, hook it up to your computer and hurry and get those files off of it. Eventually, it will overheat and fail again, stick it back in the freezer and do it all over again.
It sounds crazy, but I've done this and if there is no physical damage to the drive, it may work. What have you got to lose?

 

[Fedaykin311]

dupe

 

[Fedaykin311]

Overheating is a cause of failure with hard drives. Don't laugh now, but put the drive in a ziploc baggie and stick in in the freezer for awhile until it's nice and cold, take it out, hook it up to your computer and hurry and get those files off of it. Eventually, it will overheat and fail again, stick it back in the freezer and do it all over again.
It sounds crazy, but I've done this and if there is no physical damage to the drive, it may work. What have you got to lose?

Ha! Sounds like a recipe for water damage (from condensation) to me, but *shrug*

 

[Voo]

Ha! Sounds like a recipe for water damage (from condensation) to me, but *shrug*

Well I assume that's where the zip bag comes to play, but I agree that I also don't see the technical reason.. but then who knows.

And if the non invasive means fail, it can hardly make it worse

 

[Denithor]

Better technique if you have a laptop and the necessary cables available, just leave it in the freezer while you perform the file salvage.

 

[C1]

Most of the local grocery stores (at least around here) sell dry ice. On occasion, I have put the HDD in a zip lock, cooled it down and while it is still in the zip lock, plugged it into the computer (off the controller using an extended cable) and quickly transferred files while a chunk of dry ice was put on top of the drive to keep it cold (ie, from warming up).
You can freeze the piss out of that way if you want.

 

[bryanl]

Avoid dry ice, as it is possible to cool off a drive too quickly.


If the file is that important but you don't want to pay for data recovery, then the safest solution is to find an identical drive with an identical PC board and transplant the BIOS chip from the first drive to that new PCB. Retaining the original BIOS is important since it contains information tailored to each individual drive.