Clicky HDD Death for the Freezer

[DaveMurphy]

Right my HDD started to make a clicky noise of death and by the time i could start to back things up. it just dissapeared from My Computer.

 

I've heard rumours that you can put it in your freezer over night and it'd work for like 20 mins or so...

 

If so what do I need to do?

 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[mac_shinobi]

as long as its air / liquid tight such as one of those sealable sandwich bags so it does not get any liquid in it or on it then yes shove it in the freeze over night - this should cool it down so that when you use it - it should allow you to access the data for long enough assuming there is only some data you need to copy not hundreds of gigabytes as it would only last for 20 mins or so depending on how hot the hdd got

 

Heard of it tried and working but never had anyone in real life try it.

[DaveMurphy]

Thanks, I'll go and have an adventure putting it in the freezer, Hopefully it will work "I've never been in our Freezer before... only the Fridge!"

[mac_shinobi]

Thanks, I'll go and have an adventure putting it in the freezer, Hopefully it will work "I've never been in our Freezer before... only the Fridge!"

 

lol - I have for ice cream - one of my down falls

[RinSewand]

Or if it starts to heat up and you're not done with data - if you've got some of those compressed air cans to waste, aim one of them at it for a bit, cools them down nicely while they're running (used that trick once to get a particularly large file off). You should also be able to dump it back in the freezer - so you might want to do smaller chunks of data rather than one large "copy everything at once"

 

RwD

[mac_shinobi]

Or if it starts to heat up and you're not done with data - if you've got some of those compressed air cans to waste, aim one of them at it for a bit, cools them down nicely while they're running (used that trick once to get a particularly large file off). You should also be able to dump it back in the freezer - so you might want to do smaller chunks of data rather than one large "copy everything at once"

 

RwD

 

you could get a plastic picknic type basket / box and you could put ice packs / ice around the hard drive which is in a water / air tight bag standing upwards after you take it out of the freezer the next day that way it stays cool whilst accessing it as long as the level of the ice etc is no higher then the hard drive so it does not melt and go into the bag obviously

[Andrew_C]

I've done it, and it does work. Transfer in small batches and re-freeze every so often. It only takes a while to get it back down to temp.

[synaesthesia]

Tricky, it's one of those myths but it *does work*

 

However, when you need to recover - do NOT use windows.

Windows is TERRIBLE at reading it's own file system and stresses the drive hugely. Especially true for Maxtor drives over any other manufacturer. So, grab yourself a linux live CD (Ubuntu will do nicely) and copy everything you need from that. It is odd that Linux is better than Windows at reading NTFS but it's amusing how much data you can save that way.

[DaveMurphy]

any average time I should keep it in the freezer? how long is over night? 6/7 hours?

 

Dave

[Pottsey]

Long enough to cool the drive down. I would have thought 1 or 2 hours would be enough. All depends just how cold your freezer is.

[Midget]

Speaking as an ex data recovery engineer. WILL PEOPLE STOP SPREADING THE MYTH OF FREEZING THE B@574RDING HARD DRIVES!

 

It ONLY works when the motor is seizing in old style ball bearing motors, and the chances of that being the problem are very slim unless its an old drive or you've dropped it. You are only reducing your chance of getting the data back.

[Dos_Box]

Next you're going to tell me in the mirror and saying 'Candyman' 3 times doesn't work either!

[sparkeh]

you could get a plastic picknic type basket / box and you could put ice packs / ice around the hard drive

 

Then just pop in some champagne and some smoked salmon sandwiches and go to the river for a wonderful afternoon...

 

Anyway, back on track, got to agree with midget that this works on old drives with mechanical problems, but then the OP did say he was getting the clicky noise

[Andrew_C]

WILL PEOPLE STOP SPREADING THE MYTH OF FREEZING THE B@574RDING HARD DRIVES!

 

Please read my post above - It DID work. Not easy, didn't get all the data, but I say again, it worked.

[Chunky]

My advice would be to get Spinrite.

Superb tool - would recommend for everyone - it's a tool I couldn't do without.

 

It's not to expensive (and if it recovers your data even once, it's worth the price)

Also, if it doesn't work, he offers your money back.

I've definitely had my moneys worth from it over the years.

 

Steve Gibson is a legend in the field of Security and Data Recovery.

 

Home of Gibson Research Corporation

 

He's got a lot of useful info on his site. (plus his firewall check is immense!)

Also, check out his weekly podcasts - awesome stuff.

 

Chunky

 

PS: if it's a ticking from the actuator, then there's very little hope for it. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news.

[Midget]

Please read my post above - It DID work. Not easy, didn't get all the data, but I say again, it worked.

 

for you in your case. Freezing should be the last option because it will damage drives.

 

Clicking on modern drives is not physical in a lot of cases. You need to learn the difference between the clicks to know if it's physical or not.

 

The main causes of clicking in order of likeliness (is that a word?)

 

Power Fault (are you providing enough power? check your PSU/use a different one)

 

PCB failure which needs to be replaced with an identical one and the ROM chips swapped.

 

Sticktion (heads stick on the platter caused by turning the power off abruptly or using really cheap chinese HDDs *looks at Apple*)

 

Motor Failure - tends to only happen on old ball bearing drives, which haven't been used in years or from dropping the drive.

 

 

But then what do I know, it's not as if I did it for a living or anything. oh wait.

[Michael]

In my experience a failed hard drive sounds like a ping pong ball bouncing inside. I've never actually tried freezing a hard drive, only read possible theories. On a similar subject I learned recently that freezing an LNB (Low Noise Blocker) on a satellite dish can improve signal quality, but it's difficult to achieve bearing in mind satellite dishes are 'normally' located outside.

[Midget]

a peltier cooler would solve that problem.

[Jamo]

Im with Midget, if data integrity is paramount, dont freeze a drive. If its a last ditch effort to fix it/retrive some data, and you don't wanna spend money then by all means, I've never tried it myself, but it sounds fun!

[Michael]

a peltier cooler would solve that problem.

 

That's exactly what they used, but still it lasts a matter of minutes before the temperature rises again.

[Chunky]

If you're looking for ideas on data recovery based on other people's experience,

have a read of this - http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/PDF/200ways.pdf

 

Chunks