How successful is 'freezing' a hard disk?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bastet
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Bastet

My father has a Dell Optiplex with a 10GB HD which has developed death watch
beetle, if you know what I mean. How successful is 'cryogenics' when it
comes to temporary 'resuscitation' of a dead disk? Despite me banging on
about it at every available opportunity, the fool never backed up - and now
he's paying for it. There's very little he needs from it (certainly no more
than a GB), but if I were to freeze it overnight (in a Ziplok bag), when
we've (sorry, I've) reinstalled Windows (if he ever finds the CDs - they're
at his old company somewhere - he's retired and he bought the computer from
his company but, apparently, there were no discs).

If I can network his to mine, I can pull off the data and burn it to a CD,
assuming the HD can be revived.
 
Bastet said:
My father has a Dell Optiplex with a 10GB HD which has developed death watch
beetle, if you know what I mean. How successful is 'cryogenics' when it
comes to temporary 'resuscitation' of a dead disk? Despite me banging on
about it at every available opportunity, the fool never backed up - and now
he's paying for it. There's very little he needs from it (certainly no more
than a GB), but if I were to freeze it overnight (in a Ziplok bag), when
we've (sorry, I've) reinstalled Windows (if he ever finds the CDs - they're
at his old company somewhere - he's retired and he bought the computer from
his company but, apparently, there were no discs).

If I can network his to mine, I can pull off the data and burn it to a CD,
assuming the HD can be revived.
Click to expand...

i've tried it on about half a dozen drives
it worked on one of them


it won't hurt to try
 
You'd have to worry about some major condensation on the platters when they
start heating up.
 
Bastet said:
My father has a Dell Optiplex with a 10GB HD which has developed death watch
beetle, if you know what I mean. How successful is 'cryogenics' when it
comes to temporary 'resuscitation' of a dead disk? Despite me banging on
about it at every available opportunity, the fool never backed up - and now
he's paying for it. There's very little he needs from it (certainly no more
than a GB), but if I were to freeze it overnight (in a Ziplok bag), when
we've (sorry, I've) reinstalled Windows (if he ever finds the CDs - they're
at his old company somewhere - he's retired and he bought the computer from
his company but, apparently, there were no discs).

If I can network his to mine, I can pull off the data and burn it to a CD,
assuming the HD can be revived.
Click to expand...

Since the drive is on death watch, I have to assume you still have at least
some use of the drive. It would be prudent to salvage important data NOW
using whatever means you have available - networking, ZIP drives, a spare
HD, whatever it takes.

Freezing a drive is an attempt to shrink the movable parts in hopes of
loosening up the components just enough to get the necessary actions and
allow very temporary relief. You cause damage to the drive when condensation
begins to form on the disk platters and read/write heads. Their clearance
tolerances are quite small and the formation of moisture, and the resulting
stain left behind after eventual evaporation, can and will cause a head
crash.
 
FuzionMan said:
You'd have to worry about some major condensation on the platters when
they start heating up.
Click to expand...

??? You mean =before= they start heating up!

And I would just slave that drive into a different working box and try to
copy the files as fast as possible to the other drive.
 
Bastet said:
My father has a Dell Optiplex with a 10GB HD which has developed death watch
beetle, if you know what I mean. How successful is 'cryogenics' when it
comes to temporary 'resuscitation' of a dead disk? Despite me banging on
about it at every available opportunity, the fool never backed up - and now
he's paying for it. There's very little he needs from it (certainly no more
than a GB), but if I were to freeze it overnight (in a Ziplok bag), when
we've (sorry, I've) reinstalled Windows (if he ever finds the CDs - they're
at his old company somewhere - he's retired and he bought the computer from
his company but, apparently, there were no discs).

If I can network his to mine, I can pull off the data and burn it to a CD,
assuming the HD can be revived.
Click to expand...

A 50/50 chance.

If you can find another old drive same type / model try swapping the
controllers. What have you got to lose?
 
A 50/50 chance.

If you can find another old drive same type / model try swapping the
controllers. What have you got to lose?
Click to expand...

True story.

A good friend of mine recently got a contract to write and record
soundtrack music for adult films (how cool is that!!). His hard drive
(a Maxtor 40-gig 5400 rpm) start making noises and intermittently
locking up the system. He asked me what to do and I told him that the
drive was definitely going to die very soon. I suggested that he
salvage everything he could to CDR and I'd put another hard drive in
the system for him whenever he was ready.

He didn't quite get everything off before the system completely locked
up and then refused to boot ever again. He was in deep shit. A lot
of his newly recorded music was still on the drive.

I had never tried the freezer trick but I figured we had nothing to
lose. I happened to have a couple of removable hard drive carriages
that someone had given me. I thought these would be particularly
useful since I wouldn't have to directly handle the frozen drive and
it would stay colder longer. I froze the hard drive inside one of
these units for several hours inside a ziplock bag. We then plugged
it into the system and it booted right up.

We "lifeboated" all of his important data across my network to one of
my computers, installed a new hard drive in his computer, then moved
his data back. The dying hard drive was still under warranty for
another four months or so and he said I could have it for helping him
(musicians are always broke).

Maxtor requires a diagnostic code from one of their utility programs
before they'll issue an RMA number. I tried for TWO DAYS but I could
never get the drive to fail under test and generate an error code. I
finally put it in another computer and it's still happily churning
away.

It was probably a fluke, but in this case the freezer trick not only
seemed to work but actually REPAIR a bad drive. The bottom line is
that it's FREE and EASY to try if you get caught without backups of
important data, and it won't automatically void your warranty.

You don't need those removable hard drive carriages (or cradles or
whatever you call them) but they work well and they're cheap. I've
seen them at mom & pop computer stores for around $10.

I've had nothing but had luck with swapping controllers (I'm talking
about the circuit board on the bottom of the drive here). It can be
quite difficult to find a compatible hard drive to get the parts from.
Drive manufacturers will often change the internal workings of a drive
without changing the model number -- maybe several times a year --
making the individual components incompatible. Unless you bought two
identical drives at the same time it can be a VERY complicated
process, but it is a valid option.


Good luck.


-Wuahn
 
Wuahn said:
You don't need those removable hard drive carriages (or cradles or
whatever you call them) but they work well and they're cheap. I've
seen them at mom & pop computer stores for around $10.
Click to expand...

A word of warning; quite a few of these cheaper HDD carriages are only ATA33
compatible so can be a real bottle-neck if you're using a nice, shiny new
ATA100/133 drive in one on a motherboard that can support ATA133. You will
only get ATA33 transfer rates. Be sure to check before buying.
 
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