Woot! Putting dead HD's in the freezer actually works!

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: NumbaJuan

Originally posted by: Phocas
Didn't work for me . I have the frostbite on my hands and no pr0n .

 

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

Originally posted by: NumbaJuan

Originally posted by: Phocas
Didn't work for me . I have the frostbite on my hands and no pr0n .

and for you joksters, yes its frostbite and nothing else!:Q

 

[kursplat]

Just to clarify, when does this work?

my buddies drive was dead as far as the bios was concerned , but he could here it spin up with power applied.

 

[rwalterk]

What a great thread. Makes me so proud to be an Anandtech member... *sniff*

 

[vicwang]

 

How does that work?

 

[spanky]

alright! i just tossed my hd into the freezer... hoping for some good lovin'


edit - damn... didn't work for me

 

[ZippyDan]

Originally posted by: kursplat
i just had a friend call me about a dead drive (20 gig WD) and told him about freezer trick. worked great for him , managed to recover all his important stuff. he even (not realizing he could skip it ) let it run scandisk at boot since it crashed the last time he had it on.
good luck

Quote

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Just to clarify, when does this work?
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my buddies drive was dead as far as the bios was concerned , but he could here it spin up with power applied.

this is exactly my situation now too, with a WD 120GB SE. remembering reading this thread from a long time ago, i put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, with no success.

BUT: since i was just going on this thread from memory, i didnt put it in a ziploc bag or anything! when all the condensation melted the drive was very wet. i shudder to think how it might be inside. might i have just ruined the drive for good??

~Zippy!

 

[c8]

Well, I freeze my drive a while back, managed to get it up for a few weeks, and not it dies again. Tried the Freezer thing a few times and nothing works. Click of Death.

Quantum Fireball 40GIG

I did an RMA on this drive already, but did not send the drive back . I guess I will not be able to call them up again...or could I ? (I did receive the replacement one tho).

 

[JohnPaul]

I would imagine it works because of the old "heat expands, cold contracts theory", which likely means that your hard drive likely has something in it which the cold caused to contract, temporarily fixing it until it heats up again. Who knows for sure what causes this and can fill the rest of us in?

John-Paul

 

[optimistic]

Into the freezer my Deskstar 60gb goes! I put it in two ziplock bags, and I plan to try to get the data out 2hrs from now. Wish me luck!

 

[tweeve]

that is so cool, i am going to use that when my drives die on my RAID 0 config. *Please dont DIE any time soon*

 

[sharkeeper]

I had one almost take out two SCSI HDs, one of the drives ended up with bad sectors as I was woke up in the middle of the night with the sound of a pair of drives stopping and starting once every 10 seconds. Generally not a good thing. Especially when they're in a RAID array.

Enable delay motor start on your drives. (they provide documentation on how to do this) This way, it's the SCSI RAID HBA's task to activate the spindle motor start. If the drive power becomes in a not nominal state, the drive will be taken offline. If this is a member of a logical drive, participating disks will also be taken off line. They will spin down and alarms will sound. This way, your data is safe.

Gotta love mid range and up SCSI RAID!

-DAK-

 

[optimistic]

Yay! It worked! It's funny hearing that frozen thing spin up. It looked like the time machine that just got back from one of Marty's crazy adventures! (Which gets me thinking...why didn't they ever make an animated series? I'd watch it!)

 

[Blain]

The drive was as cold as ice, but it allowed me some time to burn data that I needed before it checked out.

WD 120GB, 8mb, 3-4 months old.

 

[wacki]

Cool Freezer Trick guys....

Just a little FYI, there's no need to keep it in the freezer overnight.

Maxim Magazine did an article testing how long it would take to freeze a beer to the point it was cold enough to drink (Fridge temp, not freezer temp). A beer in the freezer took 45 minutes to cool down. But if you made a bucket of Ice and water and spun the beer it only took 30 seconds ! The point is (like all cooling devices) air is more of an insulator than a thermal conductor. If you put the hard drive in a dry bag, or a layered series of ziplocks to be safe, squeezed the air out and then put it in a bucket of ice and water, it shouldn't take very long to cool a hard drive down to freezer temperatures. Exactly how quick this works for freezer temps, I don't know, but it would be an interesting experiment. regardless if its 5 minutes or even a half an hour its alot faster than overnight!

 

[Konnan101]

i am pretty sure i just had a hd die i am very pissed and really wanna get the stuff off it, but i am not sure if i can. i took the hd out and listened to it to see if i could hear anything with the ide cables and the power cord in i got a very slight clicking noise it did about two clicks then stoped and was silent, i then tried without the ide cables in and it didnt make any noise. The hd is not detected in the bios and it doesnt sound like it is spinning. If i were to buy a new hd would i be able to get some info off this hd if the freezer trick worked despite the fact that the bios doesnt detect it.

wd 80gb 8mb cache

 

[Radiohead]

Learn something new everyday... and I was referring to spining the beer in the bucket of ice & water

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan

Originally posted by: kursplat
i just had a friend call me about a dead drive (20 gig WD) and told him about freezer trick. worked great for him , managed to recover all his important stuff. he even (not realizing he could skip it ) let it run scandisk at boot since it crashed the last time he had it on.
good luck

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just to clarify, when does this work?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

my buddies drive was dead as far as the bios was concerned , but he could here it spin up with power applied.

this is exactly my situation now too, with a WD 120GB SE. remembering reading this thread from a long time ago, i put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, with no success.

BUT: since i was just going on this thread from memory, i didnt put it in a ziploc bag or anything! when all the condensation melted the drive was very wet. i shudder to think how it might be inside. might i have just ruined the drive for good??

~Zippy!

It's possible, if there was a nasty short circuit at any point.

However -- I would imagine that the inside of the drive is moisture-free, so I don't think there would have been any condensation inside.