Ha! Ha! The old freezer trick worked!

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Oct 10, 2002
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Well I haven't had it work very often but I revived a completely dead WD Sata drive by leaving it in the freezer for a few hours. It was completely dead. Unrecognized in bios on 3 different machines. I didn't even feel it spinning. Wrapped in plastic, freeze for around 3 hours. Plug it back in and it works! Quickly grabbing data off it and running a full check disk on it now to see if it will boot.

Cool story bra :cool:
 
This is one of those secret life safer tricks which is so funny when it actually *works*. I've also pulled off that trick a few times with client drives that were beyond hope. Nothing like being a hero and saving someone's photo collection :D

There is also something slightly odd about plugging in a drive to a PC when you can see the ice and condensation "steaming" from the cold metal. (Even after being bagged up tight!!)
 
Haha I never had it work for me but I always try it anyway, worth a shot. I've even gone as far as leaving it in the deep freezer for over a day. Glad to hear it worked for you.
 
Never even tried it. Every HD that I've lost has let the smoke out.
 
This trick might actually work on some older drives that still had low density platters. But is not totally recommended on todays earlier high density platter drives.
 
This trick might actually work on some older drives that still had low density platters. But is not totally recommended on todays earlier high density platter drives.

Why not try if the drive is already dead?

For the record I came into work today and the drive is dead again. But I got everything I needed off it so all is good.
 
Humm Nice little trick, will have to remeber this for the future.

Thanks OP! :D
 
Yeah, believe it or not I've have it work 3 out of 3 times that I have tried to recover data from drives that were otherwise dead and not showing up in the PC at all.
 
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