Let's hear it for the freezer trick!

[Biggerhammer]

My new 300G Western Digital drive made it to the venerable age of three weeks before failing- it stopped being recognized as a drive at all. Pretty shabby even for WD. Unfortunately it took some important stuff with it (my wife's writing, our tax records, etc). I had planned to back it up monthly... I've learned a few important lessons:

1. back it up more frequently
2. RAID it if it is really important
3. WD sucks even worse than remember.

I double-bagged it in ziplocs, froze it overnight, then connected it back up (still in double bags with wires routed to reduce exposure to the outside air and its moisture)

It's copying over my files now.

Moral: if a drive goes south on you, you may be able to revice it for a short time by freezing it.

 

[mshan]

What's the logic / theory behind the overnight freeze?

Also, would Western Digital be able to tell that you froze it overnight? (I would want to RMA mine after I recovered any important data)

 

[Eddieo]

I know letting them cool for several hours supposed to work so maybe you are on to soomething.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Originally posted by: Eddieo
I know letting them cool for several hours supposed to work so maybe you are on to soomething.

In the Highly Technical Forum you will find a recent, very good thread about
the freezer trick.


...Galvanized

 

[jjessico]

I have a drive that has just decided to check out. Maybe there will be something in my freezer besides a bag of frozen, chopped vegetables this week.

 

[jjessico]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee

Originally posted by: Eddieo
I know letting them cool for several hours supposed to work so maybe you are on to soomething.

In the Highly Technical Forum you will find a recent, very good thread about
the freezer trick.


...Galvanized

Got a link to that, I can't find it with search?

 

[NYTRIDR]

lol, keep out moisture with routing cables through the bag? from everything ive seen with anything metal that has frozen, the metal and the frozen air inside, creates moisture...

a link would def be helpful. also an explanation of what drive died and how exactly it could not be recog by the system, then all of a sudden recog after freezing it...was the drive clicking? freezing is a crapshoot, most often never works.

EDIT: sounds more like a crapped out mobo than a hdd issue.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Link to HT Forum

Interesting read, although I only understand part of what was offered.


...Galvanized

 

[GamerExpress]

Yeah I think it works out about 50% of the time.

 

[NYTRIDR]

lol, some guy posted that his drive started clicking, he froze it, and it still works today!!!

i can honestly say bullsh*t to that one, the clicking the actuator/head arm broken off in the drive, or it needs recalibration. freezing will not recalibrate or repair a broken arm.

 

[Jpark]

not to hijack the thread but i had two maxtor drives die within 2 weeks of each other. neither clicked or showed any warnings signs. one day they decided not to start up in my external drive. my question will the freezing trick work on these?

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Freezer trick is likely to help with any drive that wont spin up. Cooling and heating can break loose the bad bearings or stuck heads. It will not repair a bad drive. I wouldn't trust such a drive, but would get my stuff off as quickly as possible. Jim

 

[13Gigatons]

The freezer trick generally is used as a last resort in an attempt to fix a head crash (typically referenced as a "clicking noise" such as mentioned above. The reason it works occasionally is as follows.

The platters in a hard disk drive typically consist of a polycarbonate substrate that has been coated with one or more thin layer of Co or Cr based alloy, i.e. CrTi, CoCr or CoCrPt. The head materials closest to the surface of the drive are typically a heavy metal alloys, most commonly permalloy (NiFe), molyperm (MoNiFe), or Coballoy (CoFeNi) soft magnetic alloy. Anyways, all you really need to know is that the head material and the disk material are different. Because they are different, they have a different thermal coefficient of expansion (they contract and expand to differing degrees upon the application or withdrawal of heat).

With the above in mind, when a hard drive that has suffered a head crash is placed in the freezer, the metal film on the disc and the metal materials making up the head contract, effectively pulling one away from the other (and, in the process, unsticking the head from the surface of the platter). If the head crash was not severe (meaning the head just got stuck in the perfluoropolether lubricant layer on the surface of the disk as opposed to going through that layer and digging into the surface of the platter), the drive may be fully recoverable and be no worse for wear. If the head dug into the platter (scratched it) the drive will likely work for a while but is much more prone to crashing in the same spot.

About the most technical answer so far.


PS: This is why Hard drive cooling and temperature monitoring is important and yet ignored by even the most advanced users from some reason. For god sake put a fan on your hard drive and cool it down some.

 

[Biggerhammer]

I never got any clicking, just random freezes that I had not pinned down, until one day BIOS couldn't find the drive. I tried new power cables, new IDE cables (PATA), and moving the drive to a different channel. Nothing. After the freezer trick, BIOS found the drive, Windows Explorer accessed it and I could move my data.

As to RMA, I hope to RMA it but last time I went on the RMA ride with WD they sent me one dead one and then grudgingly sent me another refurb. When I get the refurb back this time, I don't even plan to open it- to eBay it will go. Western Digital won't be going into my boxen for at least five years.

 

[Bozo Galora]

some guy put a very excellent HDD freezing tutorial with pics on the web

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2004/05/bbspot_labs_ice_drive.html

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: NYTRIDR
lol, some guy posted that his drive started clicking, he froze it, and it still works today!!!

i can honestly say bullsh*t to that one, the clicking the actuator/head arm broken off in the drive, or it needs recalibration. freezing will not recalibrate or repair a broken arm.

A clicking noise from a hard disk does not mean that the head arm broke off. For crying out loud, use some common sense. :roll:
If the arm had broken off, you'd get a mass of grinding and rattling as the drive tried to spin up with loose bits of metal floating around inside.

It has been shown time and time again that the freezer trick works for some people, some of the time. You obviously aren't very good at computers; I'd suggest sticking to something like Ball In A Cup.

 

[NYTRIDR]

Aren?t very good at computers? How can you be good "at" computers?

of course the clicking noise is made by either a broken actuator/head arm or it needs recalibrating. I worked as a drive recovery specialist for more than 4 years at drive savers in Novato.

Either way you?re a moron, because only an idiot would argue a point he knows nothing about. Freezing a HDD works for a maximum of an hour or two. it doesn?t keep a HDD up for more than a year like the other moron (probably your buddy) claims to have done.

Here?s a tip:

Next time your mom calls telling you her HDD is clicking, go into the next room, take apart her HDD and look at the actuator arm. If you don?t know what that is and I?m thinking that you don?t, I will email you BIG pictures.

------------------------------------------------

Damn, id get to posting more of your mindless diatribe now, looks like you have another thousand useless posts to go before your twelfth birthday.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: NYTRIDR
Aren?t very good at computers? How can you be good "at" computers?

In the same way that you can be good "at" anything. What's your point?

of course the clicking noise is made by either a broken actuator/head arm or it needs recalibrating. I worked as a drive recovery specialist for more than 4 years at drive savers in Novato.

Either way you?re a moron, because only an idiot would argue a point he knows nothing about. Freezing a HDD works for a maximum of an hour or two. it doesn?t keep a HDD up for more than a year like the other moron (probably your buddy) claims to have done.

Here?s a tip:

Next time your mom calls telling you her HDD is clicking, go into the next room, take apart her HDD and look at the actuator arm. If you don?t know what that is and I?m thinking that you don?t, I will email you BIG pictures.

------------------------------------------------

Damn, id get to posting more of your mindless diatribe now, looks like you have another thousand useless posts to go before your twelfth birthday.

Blah, blah, blah.

A read/write arm that has broken off will NOT cause the repetative clicking noises that have been described. If you have worked as a data recovery specialist, you'd know that broken bits of drive will cause a HUGE amount of rattling and other noise.

A clicking noise is the drive trying to read a bad sector and parking/unparking the heads when it fails.

Secondly, I never argued that the freezer trick will allow a drive to run for a year. I never said anything other than "it works for some people", when it comes to getting data off urgently.

FYI, I know exactly what an actuator arm is. A broken arm will cause untold amounts of damage and noise, and a clicking noise is NOT a broken arm.

When you're done with your laughable insults, I invite you to go and find something else to profess to be an expert at.

 

[BOLt]

oh damn, a flame war! this one is actually decent, too.

lol...

 

[kaos kid]

There is a proggie out called "Get Data Back Fast" that I've had much success with. When my game Hard drive died I though I'd lost all my games but I was able to recover 100G worth of files with it. Check it out.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: kaos kid
There is a proggie out called "Get Data Back Fast" that I've had much success with. When my game Hard drive died I though I'd lost all my games but I was able to recover 100G worth of files with it. Check it out.

It's just "GetDataBack", but yeah, good program.

 

[RSMemphis]

It actually really does work. I did it once for a DELL laptop HD that died on me. Freezer to get the data off, and then back to DELL for a replacement.
I did not believe it myself at first, but it actually works.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: kaos kid
There is a proggie out called "Get Data Back Fast" that I've had much success with. When my game Hard drive died I though I'd lost all my games but I was able to recover 100G worth of files with it. Check it out.

:thumbsup:

HD partition disappeared once. Recovered most of the data.

Another time quick formatted the wrong HD. Recovered 99% of t he data in its original directory structure.

 

[NYTRIDR]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: NYTRIDR
Aren?t very good at computers? How can you be good "at" computers?

In the same way that you can be good "at" anything. What's your point?

of course the clicking noise is made by either a broken actuator/head arm or it needs recalibrating. I worked as a drive recovery specialist for more than 4 years at drive savers in Novato.

Either way you?re a moron, because only an idiot would argue a point he knows nothing about. Freezing a HDD works for a maximum of an hour or two. it doesn?t keep a HDD up for more than a year like the other moron (probably your buddy) claims to have done.

Here?s a tip:

Next time your mom calls telling you her HDD is clicking, go into the next room, take apart her HDD and look at the actuator arm. If you don?t know what that is and I?m thinking that you don?t, I will email you BIG pictures.

------------------------------------------------

Damn, id get to posting more of your mindless diatribe now, looks like you have another thousand useless posts to go before your twelfth birthday.

Blah, blah, blah.

A read/write arm that has broken off will NOT cause the repetative clicking noises that have been described. If you have worked as a data recovery specialist, you'd know that broken bits of drive will cause a HUGE amount of rattling and other noise.

A clicking noise is the drive trying to read a bad sector and parking/unparking the heads when it fails.

Secondly, I never argued that the freezer trick will allow a drive to run for a year. I never said anything other than "it works for some people", when it comes to getting data off urgently.

FYI, I know exactly what an actuator arm is. A broken arm will cause untold amounts of damage and noise, and a clicking noise is NOT a broken arm.

When you're done with your laughable insults, I invite you to go and find something else to profess to be an expert at.

My point is simply this, you are uneducated and computer illiterate. Here is a link for some basic hdd knowledge:

http://www.linwei.com.tw/en/knowhdd.html

Pay special attention to the paragraph where they write about arm jitters.

1) A broken arm doesnt always damage the disk, it only causes a jitter to be sent through the plate.
2) There are actually 2 arms on an actuator. If one breaks, the second will save the "bits" as you so eloquently put it, from flying around in the HDD.
3) Go back to school and figure out some of this stuff so I dont have to take time out of my day to educate a moron.

FYI - when parking fails, it fails. Meaning there is no repeated "click, click, click". There is only a sometimes loud "clunk".

lol, it must be hard for you to leave a thread when you obviously got your ass handed to you.

EDIT: I'm truly sorry for the flame, it was unintentional but needed.

 

[hardwareuser]

Not too long ago, I checked in my computer when I took a flight. Not surprisingly (and I really should have known better) the HD was badly damaged. It could only be detected a small percentage of the time. Anyway, when I tried running it, I was holding it in my hands. I changed the angle I was holding it at, and I heard this thing jumping around on the spinning disk! This is probably what Phil is talking about. I guess both the arms broke off though.