Hard Drive Freezer Trick have you ever tried it?

[iGuest 3]

Replying to serverphDon't Freeze it into ice like that, just put it in a ziplock bag, get all the air out you can and then freeze it. Quickly take out the drive and put it in as a second drive in a system...Use something like linux or perhaps norton ghost with -FRO (you need something that can ignore bad sectors if there are any as your time is limited)

[iGuest 3]

broken laptop HDD - how to recover data?

Hard Drive Freezer Trick

 

My laptop hard disk endured a shock a few days ago. It worked as normal for about a day, but a slight whirring noise was noticeable when the laptop was tilted. This got gradually worse, and it eventually got to the point where the whirring was a lot more violent and sounded as though the disk might have been scraping (or perhaps slipping on the spindle?) Later that day the hard drive would not stop the violent whirring noise, despite being on a flat surface, and the laptop bluescreened. When I attempted to restart the machine, the laptop would not boot from the hard disk. No more whirring was heared, but the HDD fault icon appeared on the Toshiba boot screen. I tried taking the drive out, re-inserting, but this did nothing. I could hear a normal quiet whirring when I put my ear to the drive, but I could not boot from the disk. I replaced the hard drive with a spare, and installed a fresh copy of XP onto the spare drive, and the laptop is now working fine, however I am very keen to recover my data from the old drive. I have read several reports, all suggesting different data recovery techniques, but I am not sure which to try. I have purchased an external USB caddy for the drive to try to recover files from it, however I'm not sure if there are any precautions I need to take first. The freezing method sounds promising, however I am worried that if I use this it may just make the fault worse (I have read that this can damage the protective film on the disk platters). Perhaps I should try using the dive in the external caddy before freezing it? I am aware that the fault in the drive must be mechanical because of the sounds being produced as the drive was dying, so if data is recoverable, I may only have a limited recovery period before the drive becomes completely unrecoverable. I have also read about daisy-chaining it with a healthy hard drive, and using FDISK to make a copy of the contents. This is not going to be simple, as it is a laptop hard drive, however I will attempt this if it is the best way to go about data recovery. My guesses are that either the internal spindle has come loose as a result of the shock (as was suggested by a professional) or that the drive has endured a head-crash. Either way, when put back into the laptop, no irregular noises are heared, just the normal quiet whirring that it has always produced (yet the HDD failure icon still appears on the screen). I would be most appreciative of any suggestions or advice, because the data is quite important and very irreplaceable. Thanks in advance.

[iGuest 3]

crashed hard drive with data recoveryHard Drive Freezer Trick

I crashed a hard drive on my laptop.  Bought an enclosure for the sick drive, used the program that I found online: Recover Data...About $50  found almost everything (around 95%of my original files) I am a happy camper! but this experience was stressfull!  I learned a valuable lesson...BACK UP,  BACK UP,  BACK UP!

[iGuest 3]

Hard Drive Freezer trick.Hard Drive Freezer Trick

Just received a WD notebook ATA drive with a stuck spindle (sister's bf stepped on her laptop doh!).  She had not backed it up like I recommended when I rescued it from a botched Vista SP1 update last time, so she faced losing all of her data.

I placed the drive in an aluminum USB enclosure that I picked up from newegg for $15 and popped it into the freezer for ~3 hours..  Bingo-Bango!  

 I'm backing up the data now with no errors. Didn't even have to leave it in the freezer and run the cable out to the counter.

 Initially, I got the same "spindle is stuck" sound, but a couple of gentle taps on the side (NOT the top or bottom) were enough to unstick it. 

My opinion:  If the drive is toast anyway, why not give it a shot? 

-reply by Chris T

 

[iGuest 3]

Your ipod didn't work that well because it has a BATTERY.  Batteries work better when warm and the loss of voltage has more of an affect than the increase in electrical efficiency that the cold brings.  Liquid water getting in your ipod wouldn't make it slow, it would make it not work as it would be shorting circuits.  Ice in your ipod wouldn't do much of anything until it melted. 

 I got a dead hard drive and am definitely using this method as soon as I get a new drive to put the stuff on.

[iGuest 3]

Works only sometimesHard Drive Freezer Trick

This will only work if the electronic components go out. When that happens microscopic wires break and freezing them allows them to shrink and reconnect but as soon as it heats back up they disconnect again.  This will not work for a clicking issue unless the clicking is not what caused the problem in the first place.  Clicking is the head crashing into the platter because of an uneven surface.  freezing will do nothing to correct that.

[iGuest 3]

Platter damaged on external hard driveHard Drive Freezer Trick

What are the chances of recovering data from an external hard drive in which the platters are severely damaged?  Does anyone know any data recovery centers in the US who are experts in handling a situation like this?  Please provide with names and phone numbers.  

-reply by antika

 

[longtimeago 0]

i guess this thing can be tried out taking some good risk , the thing which needs to be taken care is that there is proper sealing in the place where the power cable is plugged and that water dosent seep in. Still onething that confuses me in that pic is that where and how to drain the water . Keeping a Box in the ice cube size will be fine . Now my mind runs up to to some thing else . The design the cooling stuffs of a processor with so much care and effort. Why cant there be one like where you have a freezer box attached to your CPU in which the hard disk is kept and water has to be filled . Power supply can be given seperately to the freezer box alone. And by this im sure maximum cooling can be obtained though it sounds crazy. And if such a thing can be done hurry patenting it . If at all that can be done the fact is that the electricity bills will go high due to the use of that freezing equipment which will be fitted in the CPU. Still instead of keeping a computer in the Air Condition and paying the Electricty bills for the Air condition it can be spent on a Freezer if that works out successfully .

[iGuest 3]

It really does workHard Drive Freezer Trick

I just tried the freezer trick and it worked for me.  I have a 500GB Seagate Agent Desk external hard drive.  I have only had the hard drive for about a month and only put about 1.5GB of music on it.  The drive was not detected by my computer.  I wrapped the hard drive in a paper towel then put it in a plastic ziploc bag and then placed it in my freezer for 30 minutes.  After I plugged it back in it took about 2 or 3 minutes for it to power up. It worked for about 5 minutes which was long enough for me to retrieve and files I had stored on the drive.  It is now dead again.  Hope this helps anyone in need.

[iGuest 3]

Awesome, I did freeze my 2.5 clicking HDD inside the USB caddy, it lost one partition though, but I recovered everything from the other partitionThanks!

[Maggot 1]

I had tried this trick in school with a 20gb hdd it did work.... Havnt tried it since.....You need to be really quick or else the hdd might crash by the time you get to backing up the data....

[iGuest 3]

hi, i recently spillt water on my laptop and now when i try to start it, it does not detect the hard drive - even in bios mode. i was wondering if this freezing trick may work in this situation?? or if anyone has any other suggestions? thanks.

[Maggot 1]

hi, i recently spillt water on my laptop and now when i try to start it, it does not detect the hard drive - even in bios mode. i was wondering if this freezing trick may work in this situation?? or if anyone has any other suggestions? thanks.

Did you have a look inside the laptop ??

Did u take the hard disk out of the laptop and test it ???

If you have not tried the above then you need to.... And this is ONLY if you can...

Turn the laptop over and find the cover with the hard disk symbol on it...

It will be approx 3.5 inch the normal size of a laptop hard disk....

Once you find the hard disk do not unscrew it directly...

Turn your laptop on and try to listen to the hard disk if its making weird sounds or if it sounds normal...

If it does make weird sounds you can go ahead with the freezer trick... Basically if your hard disk has a ticking sound, Its damaged..

Buy or 3.5 inch external hard disk case... It will help you transfer the data through usb and you do not need to take the risk of running a condensing hard disk in your laptop....

With the 3.5 inch case you can confirm if your laptop hard disk is damaged and you need to do consider the freezer trick...


If the above does not work and you have to use the freezer trick... Follow all the ways to do it but do not insert into the laptop...

[age 0]

Hello,I tried the freezer trick and was actually able to recover my data for about 10 minutes which was enough time for me to get what I needed. It's a very simple easy trick. If you are still nervous to try it check out this link. I bought this auction for $1 entitled Hard Drive Recovery (199 Solutions to access your dead hard drive), this is where I got the freezer idea that worked for me but maybe one of the other ways will work better for you.http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ luck!

[k_nitin_r 8]

If you are going to freeze your hard disk drive, don't get it wet - the pictures posted indicate ice all around the hard disk drive, which tells you that somebody actually put the hard disk drive in a small tub of water while freezing it. Whether you decide to freeze it or not, you shouldn't be getting the disk wet, which is why you would want to use some kind of air-tight covering over it. Don't use regular plastic bags to cover it because of the static that could form. Instead, if you have an anti-static bag, that would be a better choice.The freezing idea is great if you are planning to lay down electrical cabling and can put a water-tight covering all around it and cover it up with snow because resistance decreases with lower temperatures (read about super conductivity) but I cannot say that it would work with a hard disk drive.If you do need to keep a hard disk cold while it is running, you could try using liquid nitrogen. There's still the condensation problem that you would want to work out.