Freezer helped me lots.

hcsvespa7 · Joined: Jan 07, 2003 Posts: 18

Success story shared.

I got a computer from one of my clients that would not boot up at all. It froze when trying to access the hard disk in the bios screen. When I put in one of my own functional hard disks the computer found the disk immediately and it booted up just fine.
I tried dropping the hard disk onto a carpeted floor as well as sharp twisting of it. Nothing worked to get it to boot again. I informed the client that everything was lost forever.

An hour later I suddenly remembered having read something about putting hard disks in the freezer for a short stint. Half an hour later the hard disk did boot after freezing it and I was able to strip the computer date off it onto a 2 gig USB plug in drive. The hard disk was sweating as it thawed out and I was stripping the data from the inside. When the disk eventually warmed up from this effort I shut the computer down and it will not boot again. Makes me wonder if it has run out of oil on the main bearings that hold the platters inside it.

My client was stoked as we say down here in New Zealand.

PS I am posting this since I have had considerable help over the years from characters like “The Shadow” and others of his ilk.
Laughing

seaeagle

Hi hcsvespa7 -

I'm glad it worked for you. You may well have read about it previously in this forum. These 2 topics have some interesting feedback on literally freezing your hard drive:

Hard Drive Going

Defective Hard Drive Noise : Freeze Your Hard Drive?.

Rons · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 5667

Glad it worked for you.

It's always worth a shot.

User: inactive Posts:

That's so funny!
After hearing about that fix, oh so many years ago now, I've tried it on almost every failed drive that's come into my shop.

Wouldn't ya just know it......It's never worked for me. Crying or Very sad

I guess it's like the old saying, "Your mileage may vary". Laughing

I'm glad to hear that someone actually got it to work for them.

I have replaced the logic board on a failed drive and was then able to boot it up and recover the data files. The drive mechanism itself seldom fails,, , , it's usually the logic board. Swapping logic boards now-a-days, usually isn't possible unless you have two absolutely Identical drives. They must have the same ROM level, etc.

You would think that the drive manufacturers themselves would provide a Data Recovery Service, but most Don't.

Thanks for the encouraging post!

Cheers Mates!
Shadow Cool

hcsvespa7 · Joined: Jan 07, 2003 Posts: 18

Yes and I didn't even put the HDD in a plastic bag at all and certaily no silica gel or any sophisicated ones like you guys.
I only left it in the freezer for 30 minutes as I surmised with my engineering mind that it was the tolerances of the bearings that was being challenged here. It was a good sized aluminium block (wonderful conductor of cold or heat) that was damn cold when I retreived if from the freezer.

Still seems I was dead lucky all the same.

Appreciate you guys being here.

Rolling Eyes

dooleyzzz · Joined: Nov 17, 2006 Posts: 21

Most of the time you can tell if it's a logic board problem or an internal problem by the way it works. If it fails to 'see' the drive at boot-up then usally it's the logic board. If it runs for a short time then locks up then usally it's an internal problem. I'v put them in the freezer (around 30 minutes, never 'freeze' them) and it'll run longer before freezing up giving you time to get the data form it. I have changed the logic board on drives that will not start at all and then it would run fine. I have even 'flashed' the eprom chip on the drive when it was slightly a different model. Non of these 'fixes' are fool proof but sometimes they work. After all the chance of getting the data at 50/50 is better then none.
Ya'll keep up the good work. I read all of your answers and learn lots from them.
Thanks to all of you that answer the questions.
dean