Freezer helps with hardware issues, not with faulty electronics. You mention that drive was not recognized that would mean that electronics is gone...

Backing up is something that too many reasonably intelligent people put off until it's too late (including me), even after a catastrophic loss. I have now handed off the responsibility to a program called NTI Shadow. I choose the directories for it to track, and it backs up every single file I create or change on the fly -- I'm using an external hard drive for it. I never have to think about data loss or backup -- and the files are saved as copies in their native format, so there's no issue around unencoding or decompressing anything I want to retrieve. I don't work for the company that makes it, but I certainly appreciate their product. You might suggest it to your daughter.

If you really want the drive contents back, contact a company like DriveSavers - they can replace the drive electronics, get your data back and ship the drive back to you. They can usually give you a pretty accurate estimate of cost, so you can determine if you want to spend that much to get the files back.

Yes, the freezing technique is well known in the technician's world. Our department uses it quite a bit, and we do seem to have the best luck only when the drive is clicking and grinding, not when the entire thing is no longer recognized. At that point, the only cure is a real data recovery facility.

From what I've heard about such places like Drivesavers, they actually do more than just replace the drive electronics - they can actually take apart the drives in vacuum-sealed rooms, get at the platters individually and mount them in different casings to access them.

Good luck next time, Neil!

I had an old Zenith laptop in 1996 that would over heat and crash then not boot. I would put the hard drive in the freezer for 10-20 minutes to cool it off and it would work great. I did this for about 2 weeks until I bought a new laptop.

This same scenario happened to me within the last month. The laptops message was "no boot device available" as the head kept "homing" the the zero cylinder. This drive contained my wifes working manuscripts as well as some irreplaceable photos. I tried connecting it to my desktop system, it didn't recognize it. I restored her system with the latest backup to a new hard drive (not nearly new enough, but better than nothing). I then tried the freezer, although I took much less care. I just stuck it on the shelf next to the meatballs for about 15 minutes. I then hooked it via a universal IDE/SATA to USB converter to her laptop. It now recognized that there was a drive, but it wasn't spinning up. I unplugged the USB cable and reinserted it several times, each time the system would identify a storage device, but wouldn't assign a letter. Then finally, another USB insertion and the drive began to spin. It was now my E drive, and I immediately began copying important files onto the new drive. Once completed I started copying other files and got quite far before the drive failed again. Placing the drive back in the freezer allowed me to access it for about a 15 to 20 minute window. I managed to get everything in several sessions. This is the second time I've salvaged a drive this way, and although it has failed in other attempts, as a last ditch effort, it's worth trying. Please note, the original symptoms would typically indicate bad electronics for which this type of procedure would have no effect. Give it a shot, you have nothing to lose.

You might consider trying OnTrack data recovery services. They too can replace the electronics and recover directly from the drive.

I am the PC Tech for a medium size company. I have used the "Freezer" recovery method at least a dozen times in the last 8 years. It usually works. I had not thought of wrapping the drive in a towel, but I will add that step in the future. Another trick I found is that I will normally freeze the drive overnight in the company's freezer. Then in the morning I put the drive in a cooler surrounded by ice packs and run the IDE and power cables into the zip lock bag and keep the unit cold during recovery. This method allowed me to save a VP's 1 1/2 GB Outlook PST file from the drive before it gave up the ghost.

Being in the I.T. field for well over a decade, I have used this trick more than once and have had pretty good luck with it. There is another trick to try, one that I have just used recently (a week ago), and it works sometimes too. However, it is only to be used in a LAST ditch effort. You can open the drive by carefully removing the cover (don't touch the platters at ALL!) and try spinning the drive up manually (without touching the surface of the platters). The drive is basically garbage after this, but as I said, it is a last ditch effort. The only other option is to pay a data recovery company big bucks. Good luck!

Or you could spend a modest amount (under $100) on a product called GetDataBack (google it) and recover all of your files. I recovered all of my files, music and vacation photos from my 300 GB external drive. We have since purchased a copy for our office to recover data for our executives who "were just going to back up their files".

GetDataBack is good, usable software, but is not applicable to the cases described here. GetDataBack is similar in functionality to things like SpinRite and others that can at least recover data in most any circumstance barring what we are addressing here: electrical/electronic failure. As long as the drive spins, even if the drive's BIOS is corrupted, some of this software can emulate and save our behinds. But they cannot retrieve data where there is not drive, and in the event that the folks above are describing, that is the case. In fairness, your suggestion is valid and perfect for just about any other type of recovery situation.

Hi,

Another option which I have seen no one else mention, is to get an identical drive and swap the circuit board with the bad drive. As a last ditch measure this will sometimes work. If the data is important enough it can be worth the trouble and expense.

My $0.02
Danny U

Do you think the freezer technique would work with my problem? I was backing up my hard drive onto an external USB drive and the drive was knocked over. It had a grinding noise when we started it up again but eventually showed the drive in Windows explorer and the first level folder list. However, when we clicked on a file or folder, nothing happened. Because of the grinding sound we haven't turned it on again. There were files on there from an older computer whose hard drive was recently DOA and we though that we lost the data forever. BTW, now we have two back up external drives. Lesson learned.

Not that I'm suggesting this for the original posters problem, but on 2 occasions, I have recovered a drive that would not spin up due to "stiction" (a problem that was common years ago) by heating the drive in the oven. In both cases, I cooked the HD at 250 deg. for 20 min., put it back in the system and it worked fine for several days.

Some years ago we had some hard drives which refused to start up, but when the whole case was lifted and given a swift twist the drive started to spin. The drive motor had enough strength to keep running but not to start-up. The inertia was broken by the violent twist/shake then it ran. When this fix worked it was obviously time to get it running and get all the files off.
One time my wife's hard drive died - could not find boot sector. I put a new hard drive in the machine, loaded operating systgem etc. then jumpered the old drive to be a slave and plugged it into the secondary position on the I/O cable. I guessed that the problem was that after years of service it might have ground down the platter bearings, and that setting the drive at 90 degrees from how it had been mounted it might run as the spindle would rest against another part of the bearing surfaqce. It did run and we got almost all the files off and onto the new "Drive C:". I have tried this several times, sometimes it works.

The best thing to do in such cases is consulting Professional Data Recovery Services such as Disk Doctors. As the data was so important, better not to take chances.

http://www.diskdoctors.com/

If you plug in a hard drive and it doesn't spin up AT ALL, its probably a faulty/burnt out HD board. If it comes down to DriveSavers and don't think your data recovery is worth that much, just ebay the same HD board online, replace it and it might just work long enough to save all your data.

If you are having hard drive problems checkout SpinRite - http://www.grc.com/intro.htm. As a satisfied customer of the product I would like to say that I was ready to spend hundreds of dollars on a Data Recovery Service but downloaded Spinrite and after letting the system run for about 3-4 days alot of my data was recovered. Data Recovery Services is the ultimate solution but should be reserved as a last resort. SpinRite works even if I didn't initially believe it.

If a drive has truly crashed and torn up the platter, freezing it won't help, but if you have a over-heating semiconductor it can indeed be useful. As far as removing the cover to give the disk a "boost" I have done thins before. Sometimes some help is needed overcoming the inertial moment. I once had one of the large filters fall onto a drive surface and jam the motor. I only found this out doing last ditch recovery. I got the data off the drive, then, for the heck of it, left the drive OPEN and RUNNING, and it ran, in LAS VEGAS, grit city, for over a month in open air! It only failed when we had a power outage over a weekend and the system shut down, the drive spun down, and dust wwas then able to settle on the platters. It was amazing. So, these things can last a little while outside of pristine conditions. Especially last-ditch. I have also had to hold a drive in my hand and "pitch it", while connected to a long set of data and power cables, you make an abrubt pitch, over and over, but you don't let go, while hitting "Retry" on the "sector not found error". It essentially does what freezing the drive sometimes does...temporarily line up cylinders and sectors on drives that were perhaps formatted or used in temperatures outside the norm.

As long as the drive does SOMETHING, then there is a chance that the freezer will help.
You usually get about 10m per freeze to get your data off so depending on how much you have to get off go for the most important stuff first since you may only get a couple of chances at it.

I wonder where this started, and how it seemed to spread so far, I don't think I have ever read it in anything "official" or even published tech books.

I was having problem with a deathstar and called them up and the tech had never heard of it so maybe they don't tell Harddrive techs

If the failure is in the drive electronics, the above suggestion to locate another drive and swapping the electronics can work--normally the other drive should be the identical model (not just the same size and geometry). The commercial data recovery firms are often able to swap the electronics and get the drive working to recover the data--and not have to open the drive in a clean-room environment and remove the platters to recover their data.

I have about a 50% success rate with the freezer technique, but always, always shake my head and groan to the customer, giving myself only a remote possibility... Saves even more disapointment if you cant make it go, and gives everyone a rosy glow if it does. Spin rite and other software tools can also help, and there are dedicated programs for cameras/memory cards etc that often do the trick, partition table doctor can also help in cases where the problem is with the partition table (duh!). A flick of the wrist or a sharp whack with the handle of a screwdriver can help with stiction or even bad motor/bearings sometimes. Hard to charge someone when you are unsuccessful and may have reduced the possibility of a "clean room" recovery with low-budget efforts...

My wife had a computer that had more unbacked up data on it than I would like admit, and Gillware (http://www.gillware.com/) got it all back, and they did it for under $400.00 (80GBHDD). So if the deep freeze leaves your data out in the cold, go to a reliable data digger.

Reading these comments reminds me that I bought a 30-GB IBM Deskstar, iirc DTLA-307030, some years ago. I connected the cables, but set it down, unmounted, outside the machine. I grounded myself, then felt the ICs with my fingertips as the drive warmed up. (It was recognized and spinning).

Yes, this is the model that had a lot of field failures. Some will recognize the model number (assuming I recalled it correctly!).

I'd researched Deskstars, and thought they were the cat's meow, but one IC (function unknown to me) got so hot that I risked a mild burn. Some recent Seagates and Maxtors don't have hot ICs; perhaps none do.

Apparently this is normal. I later bought a 60-GB Hitachi Deskstar, which had a circuit board much like the IBM, and it also had a hot IC.

I always rigged up a temporary fan while running the Deskstars, which I was using quite informally for backup.

IBM has its act together about as well as any company, but imho they missed, in this one detail.

(Fwiw, I have seen optical drives (CD/DVD) with heat-transfer pads in contact with the metal housing, to cool hot ICs.) A Plextor from some years back has a wee fan in the back.

If you hold a drive in your hand, you can feel the reaction torque as it spins up, as well as reaction forces as it seeks. At speed, there's a mild gyro effect.

Long time ago, I needed to fix a dead drive on a Hardcard, which has a drive mounted on an ISA plug-in accessory board.

It seemed that the heads had stuck to the platter, so I held it in one hand and whacked it (not too hard) with a soft tool (maybe a screwdriver handle) in the other.

I held it so that the whack made the drive body rotate about its spin axis. Inertia made the platters lag behind as the heads jumped more or less along the parking track. Fixed it, temporarily.

What if my WD Passport spins, lights up but isn't recognized by any computer? It's not under My Computer, Disk Management, or Devices. Is it only salvageable by professionals or can I get some software to do it? Most of the software I've seen needs to have the drive recognizable before it can grab stuff off of it.

WD Passport has a HardDrive inside, there might be a problem with the casing..remove the casing and try to connect to your computer. If it works, you can use a data recovery software.

Otherwise the issue might be with firmware and you would need some kind of firmware correcting apps. This is not recommended if you are not experienced enuf to handle the situation. If data is important try a data recovery services company.

Feel free to contact me, I will help you further.

The freezer trick worked for me on a 30Gb Freecom USB HD and gave me two ten minute windows in which I was able to recover valuable data. The irony for me was that two weeks before my main HD had failed and had to be replaced, I had patted myself on the back at having the foresight to back-up the important stuff onto the USB drive.....then, before I had transferred all of the data back again, the back-up disk failed !
I found that 5 hours in the freezer gave me 10 minutes of access.

Last night one of my hard drives just died.. It was working perfectly fine prior to this. On my c: I have windows and on the drive that died (d:) I have the Program Files and other extremely important work relate files. (over 120GB worth)

So last night I decide to reboot my pc and what happens? The D: drive (Western Digital WD200) is not detected. It stays stuck on the POST screen for about 2 minutes and finally get a list of the hardware.. Primary master detected, Primary Slave: none (this should have been my WD hard drive), Secondary Master: Dvd Burner.

This made me wonder wtf was going on so I turned the PC off, open the side of the can, too the hard drives out, checked the jumper, the cable (ide and power) and everything seemed fine.

So I put everything back in and start up my pc. Same things.. No D: drive detected.. I go into the bios (took over 1 minute to get into the bios after hitting the DEL key) and see that the Slave hard drive is not listed.

When touching the hard drive under it it's warm/hot so it must be getting power, but I don't think that it's spinning since I hear nothing. So I have decided to try the freezing trick to see if I'll be able to get all of my important stuff back.

If that doesn't work I don't know what else I can do since I don't have the $ to get a data recovery company to get my stuff for me. Yes, this data is VERY important, but I don't have the cash for what they charge.

I'm crossing my fingers that freezing the hdd will work at least long enough for me to transfer the files to my good hard drive.

yo al: did it work?