HD Crash - Freezer Works!!

[gb777]

Hello,

Had a hard drive crash last week. Maxtor Diamond Max 9 200g (2004). It played the song of death. The drive wasn't spinning. Tried several hours and still wouldn't work. Got 20yrs experience and have used the freezer trick before. Put the drive in a ziploc baggie and in the freezer for 1hr. Plugged it in my external case and it sounded different. Sounded like it wanted to spin. Only played the song a couple times. Turned it on and off a couple times then it started to spin up. Unhooked the usb cable and reconnected it and all the partitions showed up and I immediatly copied all the partitions to another external which took 8 hrs. I did have backups but not up to the day.

Reason I'm posting this is I read on some data recovery sites the freezer method is a myth, old wives tale and they discounted it saying they've never had a drive recovered by putting it in the freezer. Well, I just had it work (again). Put it this way, what do you have to loose?

P.S. I had 2 drive problems so if anyone reads my other posts that would clear any confusion.

 

[joewena]

This is really weird...but my HDD failed about 2 months ago, its like 2 and a half years old...(not even old geez) lolz gonna try it, like you say, what can you lose.

 

[gb777]

Don't just try 1hr in the freezer. I just got lucky that after 1 hr I got it going. If 1hr doesn't work try 2 or even over night. Try a couple of times. It all depends how bad you need what's on it.

Also, have a recovery plan in place while you're waiting for it to freeze up. What are the most important things you need off that drive. You may only get one chance so try to copy off what you need to a memory stick or external drive or different drive within your computer, then go to less important then finally backup or copy the entire drive or partitions to another drive. Don't shut the computer off or disconnect anything. If you start it up again, it may not work the next time.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Congrats. It works once in a while, but not often. We are glad for you.

One other case where it worked:

A fellow went into a pet shop and bought a used parrot. Turned out that the parrot used to belong to a pirate, and it would swear a blue streak night and day. He yelled at the parrot; it cursed back. He tried various forms of punishment, to more abuse. Finally he got so angry that he put the parrot in the freezer for five minutes.

When he let the bird out, it thanked him politely and promised to behave properly in the future. "And may I ask you," the parrot went on, "just what the turkey did that annoyed you?"

 

[trooperj3]

My Dell laptop has 2 x Seagate 500gb hard drives and the storage hard drive suddenly stopped working. It worked again when I re-booted but a few days later it was not recognised in windows (7) or in the bios. I realised that I should have re-backed up my data immediately there was an issue but didn't bother. A few days later it failed to be recognised again. I removed the hard drive and re-seated it but it still wasn't recognised. I checked that it was spinning up which it was but it dead as far as I was concerned. I read on the web about the freezer trick and although dubious I decided to give it a go. I wrapped the HD in a polythene sandwich bag which I then placed inside a sealed bubble wrap bag and put it in the freezer overnight. I was in two minds in the morning whether to refit it to my laptop as there was naturally some signs of condensation on the HD casing. I took the plunge and refitted it and much to my surprise it worked. I immediately copied over all the contents to a portable hard drive. I have now ordered a new WD hard drive but so far, having restarted it several times, it is working fine.
Very thankful that I read all the forums and read that this fix had worked for somebody else.

 

[EvilTEA]

This worked perfectly for an 8 year old Seagate 1TB server drive. Drive would not spin up after the server was turned off for the first time in nearly 5 years. It would click every 5 seconds upon being powered on trying to get the platters to spin. I guess the bearings are shot.

Tried everything from shaking to mild thumps, but after 2 hours in the freezer, it fired right up and was able to restore all data. Thanks!

I love how all the data recovery folks are always saying this is a myth...

Hello,

Had a hard drive crash last week. Maxtor Diamond Max 9 200g (2004). It played the song of death. The drive wasn't spinning. Tried several hours and still wouldn't work. Got 20yrs experience and have used the freezer trick before. Put the drive in a ziploc baggie and in the freezer for 1hr. Plugged it in my external case and it sounded different. Sounded like it wanted to spin. Only played the song a couple times. Turned it on and off a couple times then it started to spin up. Unhooked the usb cable and reconnected it and all the partitions showed up and I immediatly copied all the partitions to another external which took 8 hrs. I did have backups but not up to the day.

Reason I'm posting this is I read on some data recovery sites the freezer method is a myth, old wives tale and they discounted it saying they've never had a drive recovered by putting it in the freezer. Well, I just had it work (again). Put it this way, what do you have to loose?

P.S. I had 2 drive problems so if anyone reads my other posts that would clear any confusion.