Get IT Done: 200 ways to revive a hard drive

They have to be kidding, right? Nope. Actually this is actually being recommended. Yes folks, just slap that hard drive in the freezer!

From: Travis Standen
One trick I have learned as a technician, when the problem is data-read errors off the platters themselves, is to 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.
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From: Thedeedj
If the problem is heat related, I put the drive in the freezer for about 15 minutes to cool it down… sometimes this gets the drive up long enough to copy any critical files…

From: Itguy1
Put the drive in a waterproof sealed bag, put it in the fridge for an hour or so, then have another go.

From: Kelly Reid
Well, I won’t start playing with your specific situation, too many steps or possible solutions where everything starts “If that last thing didn’t work try…”

But I’ll give you one for free that was a nice hero moment for me. Had a drive where it sounded like the drive motor was engaging but not getting anywhere, so we stuck it in the office freezer for an hour! I’ll be darned if it didn’t work. The drive was up long enough to get the data ghosted to another drive and we turfed it, even though it sounded fine at that point. I can’t really take credit for it though—I had heard it in some geek bull session but I thought it was some jedi-geek urban myth. Goes to show you that you know you’re really screwed when you say something to the effect of “Okay, hold on tight, I’m gonna try something I saw in a cartoon once but I’m pretty sure I can do it.”… Source: TechRepublic

[tags]myth,freezer,urban,data-read errors[/tags]