all of a sudden, you see, my loyal hard drive decided to retire about a week ago. i had to buy a new hard drive to replace it, and resume my computer tasks. my old drive is just lying around in my room after that, and i'm wondering how to at least get ahold of my files there (at least the most recent ones -- mostly downloads -- which i failed to backup before it decided to die down on me), if it's still possible.

my old harddrive can't be detected in the bios, and it makes this clicking noise on boot up. i remember this hard drive freezer trick i read before, but i'm wary to try it on my own. even if i can chalk it up to experience, i'm still scared on what will happen if i do.

anybody among you tried this freezer trick? i want to have first-hand info from my peers in this forum, and not just those posted in some other sites claiming it does work. see, there is one who tried the trick and here are images of his attempt:


funny images, you see? obviously, that guy wasn't doing it right.

what's your experience?

Hey, you've got nothing to lose! Besides, while doing it, you can take some pictures and post them here, or create a small "Freeze you HDD - HOWTO" page

You should try this:

Put your broken HDD somewhere in your room so that it adjusts to your room temperature. Next, put your HDD in a plastic bag and place it in your freezer for a few hours (or overnight). While the HDD is "chilling" , you need to prepare your existing system for the recovery process... Make sure that there is enough space left on your working HDD because you don't want to run out of it while you are copying all of your files! Also, try to copy the most important files from your damaged HDD first before doing the rest...

Remember, this is a very time-crucial process! You can only do this a couple of times before the HDD finally stops responding even to this treatment!

Read this before continuing.

http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/664/7

http://www.trisweb.com/archives/2005/06/15...-freezer-trick/

PS: The worst thing that can happen is that the HDD doesn't get detected by the BIOS

But, the best thing that can happen is that you can get your data back!

Good luck!

Here are some drive recovery tricks that have worked for me, in the order that I do them. Try booting the
drive and copying the data off after every step.
1. Hold the drive upside down, making gravity change the head geometry ever so slightly. Vertical is also
another option.
2. Slightly rap the drive with your knuckle, (but nowhere near hard enough to damage the drive).
3. Try the drive in another machine, (slight drive voltage change assumed to be the miracle worker here).
4. Rap the drive just SLIGHTLY harder than you did above in 2.
5. Freeze the hard drive in the freezer for two hours, and place in a plastic zip lock bag to prevent
condensation from forming on the drive when you plug it back into the system, (head geometry, electrical
resistance lowered, electrical contact points adjusted, etc., assumed to be the miracle here).
6. After the drive warms up to room temperature or better, rap it even harder with your knuckle this time.
7. Repeat all of above steps on next day, as sometimes I've gotten data off drive simply by trying again.

That's pretty funny. I have never seen anyone take the "Freezer" trick to that level before. I wonder if it worked

Personally, if the data is not that important, what's the point? Just to do it?
I have tried this, and I have to admit, it hasn't done squat. I don't know who came up with this idea, or if it is just a myth.

Physics say that metal, cold or frozen condenses or contracts. Hence putting more pressure on the drive. It would be better to heat the drive up., freeing up and friction because the platters and all the metal would expand. But then that could also add more problems to and already bad situation.

There is a way to copy data from a drive one bit at a time. But you need to get the drive to a bootable state. If this can not be done, I don't know of any app or trick that can fix that. That is why there are companies out there that make lots o money from data recovery.

Just my opinion

The freezer trick works wonderfully. Yes, some problems with hard drives will not allow this trick to work due to it being a more mechanical issue rather than sector problems. However, we use it at work for every hard drive that dies (we have over 700 employees so there a ton of dead hard drives) and it has only failed me once in the past 3 months. Leave the hard drive in the freezer for atleast 1 hour. Then try to use it. If it doesnt work try putting it back in the freezer for few more hours and try again. If it still doesnt work, then you know its a mechanical malfunciton and dont waste any more time waiting for it.

But...That Hard Drive trick sounds REALLY crazy, wouldn't it do any kind of short circuit or something else?

Those images left me actually clueless.

awesome, I'm going to try this trick when my harddrive dies, sounds like it would work because when you freeze it the conductors are closer letting the electricity flow better, heating it up wouldnt work because if there is a crack or gap in the circuitry it will only make it bigger and prevent any data from being processed.

Haha I have no idea how that would work. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ipods work using a hard drive like device to store songs. If I leave my Ipod in my car overnight or something and it gets really cold it actually works worse in the morning cold then when it warms up. It has a hard time switching songs/finding songs while cold, but after a few minutes of heating up it seems to work much better.

This is pretty funny though, and you're right, you dont have anything to lose. Your hard drive is screwed anyways so why not try and freeze the damn thing. Haha. I wouldnt recommend leaving it ontop of your computer like that guy did though due to the fact that it will melt all over your motherbaord and stuff. Haha that wouldn't be too good. Worth a shot.

Better try this rather than losing all your data.

Heck, I would try it, if I had to...

The way it works, in my understanding of electronics, and physics is: electrical resistance of a material lowers, the cooler that material is... That's due to a fact, that atoms move erradicly around, and the lower the temperature is, they are slowing down... When they are still (or close to a halt), that allows for more electrical current to pass trough, and the drop in voltage or power is lower... I'm sure I made an error somewhere i