Put my harddrive in the freezer ..

[Aimster]

Still dead :-( . I'm leaving it in there overnight and trying again and if that doesn't work then it is going in the trash.

 

[AristoV300]

My only question is why????

 

[Aimster]

Originally posted by: AristoV300
My only question is why????

It's dead. Nothing works. I cannot even format it. It says Read/Write Error. I was hoping by freezing it I could make it work long enough to get some important pictures out of it.

Guess not

 

[AmdEmAll]

That sucks. I've lost all my stuff before too I recommend a USB harddrive if you don't want this to happen again.

 

[DGath]

lol... the things people will go through to get their pr0n collection back.

 

[Pciber]

Originally posted by: AmdEmAll
That sucks. I've lost all my stuff before too I recommend a USB harddrive if you don't want this to happen again.

and this will help... how? a usb hard drive will probably be rattled around more than most, and therefore be more likely to fail

maybe you meant a thumbdrive? flash memory in a little usb stick? these are great, but they are only so big...

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Pciber

Originally posted by: AmdEmAll
That sucks. I've lost all my stuff before too I recommend a USB harddrive if you don't want this to happen again.

and this will help... how? a usb hard drive will probably be rattled around more than most, and therefore be more likely to fail

maybe you meant a thumbdrive? flash memory in a little usb stick? these are great, but they are only so big...

I think he meant as a backup.

 

[zerocool84]

ok im a little lost, how in the F is puttin ur hard drive in the freezer supposed to magically make it work again?

 

[bdmst16]

We do it all the time here at work when the drive completely dies. It works less than half the time, but if the drive is dead, then there's no harm in trying.

I wish I could give a concret answer why it sometimes works, but it would be 100% speculation. I heard of this trick from a classmate that worked at a large ISP. He told me that if you opened the freezer in their lunchroom it was filled with Hard Drives.

If you have exhausted all other avenues, then why not?

 

[jelifah]

I've read this 'rumor' as well.

I had a 3GB PCMCIA hard drive go belly up on me, thank god I had backed up a week ago, and was like *shrug* it wouldn't hurt anything cuz it's dead anyway.

After putting the device in the freezer overnight I got it to be detected, when before it did nothing. Alas I still couldn't access the disk.

Which brings me to my backup suggestions. If you have enough space, I just do a weekly or monthly drag and drop backup from one drive to another. This crap about RAID and backup software is for the birds, not to mention overkill for most people. I've seen to many times, in a RAID situation, where Device A goes bad, and replicates its errors to Device B, hosing both units. Or your special backup software was configured improperly and the data you THOUGHT you had saved isn't there. With drives so cheap just have a spare, make a folder with the date, and copy it over.

Granted when you reach above 10 Gigs or so that becomes unwieldy. But this idea is more or less for your mobile files, not your mp3's or pr0n.

- Jel

 

[imported_Phil]

Careful you don't leave it outside somewhere Aimster; someone might nick the wheels from it.

 

[Pciber]

Originally posted by: jelifah

Granted when you reach above 10 Gigs or so that becomes unwieldy. But this idea is more or less for your mobile files, not your mp3's or pr0n.

hey, my mp3s(sparsly mixed in w/ legal wmas, too...), pr0n, and movies are important! I think i'de rather save that, which totals up to well over 50gb, than say... schoolwork that i have already turned in, and am keeping "just in case"..

I can see where your idea can be used - if you were constantly making powerpoints for your office, or flash movies for someone... it would be good to back those up. In my environment, though, its not practical.

 

[jelifah]

Hey don't get me wrong, mp3's and pr0n need their lovin' to!

But, as an mp3 afficianado myself, I can assume you already have that collection backed up. In my case, I've got my system drive, loaded with mp3's and a full backup of the mp3's on another drive.

In my world the mp3 collection isn't changing as much as my daily files. So the weekly/monthly drag and drop includes My Docs. While the new mp3 rips get transferred to both places when a rip occurs, or just label a folder called New Rips and transfer when I get a chance. After spending countless hours ripping my collection I would NOT want to deal with losing them.

- Jelifah

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Originally posted by: jelifah
mp3's and pr0n need their lovin' to!

- Jelifah

I'd like to nominate the above for quote of the year....

 

[imported_NoGodForMe]

Dat tape drives work and are reliable. But most wouldn't think to get one because it's scsi and costs big bucks. A DDS3 tape holds about 10 gigs of data.

The best option for most kids is burning their important data to DVDs. That would give you 4.7 gigs on each disk. Yes, you'd have to use a bunch of them to back up a full hard drive, but it's better than losing everything.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

I used the freezer trick on my old 40gig seagate when it died finally after giving me 3.5 years of non-stop faithful service. I got ALL my data back

 

[magnux]

I do the freezer trick quite frequently. Another thing that helps, once you've exhausted all other avenues, is once you take it out of the freezer, hold the HD about 2 feet in the air, then drop it. Try to have it land flat on the floor. Sometimes this "jolt" is enough to get it working for a few minutes, usually enough to save data.

Crazy? Yes. But it's worked for me on numerous occasions.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
ok im a little lost, how in the F is puttin ur hard drive in the freezer supposed to magically make it work again?

Before slamming something you don't understand you should definately do some research:

For example if you had tried searching you would have found threads like:
Woot! Putting dead HD's in the freezer actually works!

And information like:
200 Ways to Revive a Hard Drive
If you don't have a Tech Republic account use:
UID: at2001@my.net
PASS: at2001

Thorin

 

[PhoenixOrion]

It works.

I was skeptical about it at first until I had to try it to recover other people's hd.

Double zip-lock, freeze overnight, thaw for an hour, wipe condensate, plug-it in, retrieve files.

 

[Aimster]

Wait after I remove it from the freezer to I plug it in right after or wait an hour??
Should I drop it to shake things up inside like someone in here said?

Lol these aren't for porn pics. Pics me and my GF took which are memories. Much more important than porn . I learned my lesson.. always BACK UP DATA.

 

[meltdown75]

well, if it is pr0n of you & your gf, then its even more important!

j/k

 

[Blain]

I had a 120GB WD that stopped working for me. It would boot up for a short time then lock. After leaving it shut down overnight, it kept running longer, but not long enough to burn any data off of.
I stuck it in the freezer for a couple of hours...
Installed it back in the case and got ready to burn data...
That was about a year ago... And it's still running to this day! :laugh:

Needless to say, I'm SOLD on the freezer trick. It may not work on every drive every time. But if it works at all, it's worth the price!

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: zerocool84
ok im a little lost, how in the F is puttin ur hard drive in the freezer supposed to magically make it work again?

Before slamming something you don't understand you should definately do some research:

For example if you had tried searching you would have found threads like:
Woot! Putting dead HD's in the freezer actually works!

And information like:
200 Ways to Revive a Hard Drive
If you don't have a Tech Republic account use:
UID: at2001@my.net
PASS: at2001

Thorin

Preach On Brother!

 

[NiKeFiDO]

i have all my mp3s backed up on other people's computers through out the world



(i also have the worlds largets sea shell collection. I keep them along the beaches of the world)

 

[DJQuanta]

The best backup option for me: Dual Layer DVD's.... 9 gigs each.

I have all my mp3's, more than 2000 pics of my son's first 14 months of life, and all the pr0n of me and my wife (J/K ) backed on dvd's.

And if I'm backing up some content that will need "refreshing", I'll use a 4.7 gig DVD-RW...... you can burn one in 12 minutes, and erase it and re-burn up to 1000 times.

I think it shows that I love my Nec 3500 DVD burner.