phototropic
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Has anyone ever actually recovered data from a failed HDD by FREEZING it?
This came up in another thread and it got me curious...
Everyone by now must be familiar with the story of the failed HDD and the freezer. I first heard about this quite a few years ago and it is a wonderful idea: if your hard drive has failed, you have a nuclear solution to the problem of recovering data - place your failed drive in a freezer bag, insert it into the freezer and leave it there overnight. In the morning you remove the drive and hook it back up immediately, fire it up and have one last shot at retreiving your data.
My question is simply this: has anyone ever actually done this successfully? Not "does anyone know someone who did it..." or "does anyone know someone who SAYS they did it..." Has anyone ever successfully recovered data from a failed harddrive by freezing it? If you have actually frozen it, powered it up and then retreived data, I would love to hear your story.
Everyone by now must be familiar with the story of the failed HDD and the freezer. I first heard about this quite a few years ago and it is a wonderful idea: if your hard drive has failed, you have a nuclear solution to the problem of recovering data - place your failed drive in a freezer bag, insert it into the freezer and leave it there overnight. In the morning you remove the drive and hook it back up immediately, fire it up and have one last shot at retreiving your data.
My question is simply this: has anyone ever actually done this successfully? Not "does anyone know someone who did it..." or "does anyone know someone who SAYS they did it..." Has anyone ever successfully recovered data from a failed harddrive by freezing it? If you have actually frozen it, powered it up and then retreived data, I would love to hear your story.
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Thanks to all for your contributions.
This is what I love about this site...the process of discovery never ceases! It can only be a matter of time before I refridgerate my first harddrive...
This is what I love about this site...the process of discovery never ceases! It can only be a matter of time before I refridgerate my first harddrive...
"And most of all, tell your customers to STOP using the drive the minute they have problems"
That was another thing, it's good to have in mind that if the drive heads have failed you might permanently destroy it. I managed to render one useless by sitting and trying different recovery programs for hours and hours. When I eventually gave up and sent the disk to a data revocery company thay told me that the seek head had dug a deep grove in the middle of the plate and that even if they removed the plates in their lab it would cost me a fortune and I still wouldn't get all the data back.
I just wanted to add this as something to think about, if I have a client and one of their disks die I always tell then that, sure, I can try and get the data off that drive but every minute I work with it might lead closer to the destruction of the drive. So if the company values the data on that disk really highly, like an old case where some architects stored all their blueprints on a laptop and didn't back it up (don't ask) I always tell them that an option is to have the plates removed in a lab and data directly off of them without risking to destroy the data.. but that it will probably cost between 4-5K EUR.. I'm just saying that for family photos it might be OK to fiddle with ziplock bags and so on but if the companys' future might depend on that data then I would never suggest that they do anything else than immediately unplugging the thing and sending it in to the pros.
That was another thing, it's good to have in mind that if the drive heads have failed you might permanently destroy it. I managed to render one useless by sitting and trying different recovery programs for hours and hours. When I eventually gave up and sent the disk to a data revocery company thay told me that the seek head had dug a deep grove in the middle of the plate and that even if they removed the plates in their lab it would cost me a fortune and I still wouldn't get all the data back.
I just wanted to add this as something to think about, if I have a client and one of their disks die I always tell then that, sure, I can try and get the data off that drive but every minute I work with it might lead closer to the destruction of the drive. So if the company values the data on that disk really highly, like an old case where some architects stored all their blueprints on a laptop and didn't back it up (don't ask) I always tell them that an option is to have the plates removed in a lab and data directly off of them without risking to destroy the data.. but that it will probably cost between 4-5K EUR.. I'm just saying that for family photos it might be OK to fiddle with ziplock bags and so on but if the companys' future might depend on that data then I would never suggest that they do anything else than immediately unplugging the thing and sending it in to the pros.
oops.. too late.
ASKER
Bebugger systems,
Thanks for your input - here's 50 virtual points!!!
Thanks for your input - here's 50 virtual points!!!
ASKER
If refridgerating the drive yields a 25% success rate then it is definitely a worthwhile recovery option. The next time a client discovers that they really should have backed up that Phd thesis/850 family photos, I'll give it a try. Usually I would try moving the drive, run it upside down or somesuch, gently tap the corners, or swap the board for an identical one (but it has to be IDENTICAL). 2 - 3 hours in the fridge doesn't sound too technically demanding.
One question. If the drive works for about 10 mins, and must then be returned to the fridge for another couple of hours, how about running it from inside the fridge? USB enclosure? Long IDE cable/power connector? Anyone ever tried that?