Freezing a dying harddrive

[NivekC4]

I had my main 30gb harddrive fail on me. The other day I was able to boot up another harddrive and slaving the 30gb and pulled some information off of it. Yesterday, I tried to get the remaining portion of information, but Windows XP did not recognize the drive at all.

I've read that freezing the harddrive can sometimes squeeze extra life out of the drive, and was wondering if anyone has had success at this.

Also, any other ideas to try? The harddrive makes a clicking and scratchin noise and slows down the system like crazy! It's a maxtor 30gb harddrive.

Thanks for the input.

-NivekC4

 

[dennisjai215]

yeah i heard about the freezer trick not sure though =P

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

You could try mounting the drive through knoppix...I couldn't tell you the specifics though. If you do freeze your drive, wrap it in a plastic bag (just a ziplock bag) to protect it from condensation.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

I tried the freezer thing with my gf's IBM 30GB drive ... put it in a freezer bag and popped it in their for about an hour. Took it out and it booted just fine. I backed up anything that was important and it died again afterwards.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: TheBoyBlunder
You could try mounting the drive through knoppix...I couldn't tell you the specifics though. If you do freeze your drive, wrap it in a plastic bag (just a ziplock bag) to protect it from condensation.

oh god, i didnt' wrap my dead 60gb in a bag, freeze it for 30min and it was still not recognizable.
oh crap. all data on it was gone for good.

 

[Ionizer86]

Freezer trick didn't work for me when this cheesy Maxtor 40GB 5400RPM was about to die. It was just under 3 years, so thankfully, I got it RMA'd (and they sent me a refurb of the same cheesy drive)

 

[apoppin]

It worked for my Dell notebook' HD for quite awhile; it would be unrecognized in BIOS, i'd remove it, plop it in the freezer (in a plastic bag) for 15 minutes, thaw it and stick it back in . . . it's work for a few (more) hours and then lock up . . .

freeze, thaw and repeat . . .

until Visa's extended warranty FINALLY paid for it's replacement and my notebook's overhaul.

:roll:

 

[spartacuskzm]

You could try this.....

http://www.deadharddrive.com/

 

[Insey]

Opps...I just did this trick tonight to three of my hard drives but didn't know I was suppose to put them in a ziplock bag. When I took them out, they were all wet and none of them worked. Just lost 460GB of data.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Insey
Opps...I just did this trick tonight to three of my hard drives but didn't know I was suppose to put them in a ziplock bag. When I took them out, they were all wet and none of them worked. Just lost 460GB of data.

THREE hds?

That's a little hard to believe.

 

[NivekC4]

Originally posted by: spartacuskzm
You could try this.....

http://www.deadharddrive.com/

Inspiring ... but my harddrive is approx 3 1/2 years old. I highly doubt I could find the same drive :-(

 

[spartacuskzm]

Can't hurt to try...especially if the data is worth it. If it's a branded computer try to find a brand-specific forum and hit people up that have already upgraded w/ their existing models. In other words, maybe they upped to a 160GB drive and have the other one in there pretty much empty.

I dunno - if it's worth it exhaust your options.

G'luck.

 

[Bassyhead]

Originally posted by: NivekC4

Originally posted by: spartacuskzm
You could try this.....

http://www.deadharddrive.com/

Inspiring ... but my harddrive is approx 3 1/2 years old. I highly doubt I could find the same drive :-(

you might be able to find a used drive