How to revive a hard drive

“Revive my drive!” Alright, that sounds a little stranger than intended. But think about it, where would you be if you lost it all? Your data that is. And yet that is the point of the piece below….

TechRepublic has posted a big old article offering 200 ways to revive a hard drive.

These aren’t your average software-related solutions - in general, we’re talking about some serious cross-your-fingers-and-hope-the-voodoo-works type situations. My favorite solution is giving the hard drive some good time to think about what it’s done in the freezer.

… when the problem is data-read errors off the platters themselves, [I] freeze the hard drive overnight. It makes the data more ‘readable,’ but for a one-shot deal. If this data is critical, and you have a replacement hard drive (which, if it’s a drive failure, you probably do), then you can hook up your frozen hard drive and immediately fetch the data off before it warms up.

Have you got any special methods for getting the last few bits of data off your bum drive? Let us know in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com. Source: Lifehacker

Tags: hard drive, lifehacker, software solutions, replacement hard drive