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[mnemonicj Profile]

I have my in-laws IDE notebook hard drive that has been causing some BSODs, but my in-laws failed to tell me until it wouldn't boot up anymore. I have an IDE to USB adapter and I have connected the hard drive to my computer. My computer recognizes the device and the hard drive spins up until the activity light is lit. Once lit, the activity light does not go off and the hard drive has subtle vibrations in threes, like it is trying to read the drive and can't

Anyone had success with the freezer method? I tried it for 20 minutes and it didn't work. I may need to try it for longer, if it does work at all. I have also tried to connect the hard drive in different physical positions to see if the heads can more easily read the drive in a certain position, but no luck there either.

Any other suggestions?

[ar1stotle Profile ICQYIM]

I've had success with the freezer method twice, but it's really a last resort hail-mary type thing. But what I did was put some of those gel packets that absorb moisture in a ziplock bag, the put the drive in there with the necessary wires poking out of the bag. I then package-taped the bag shut so the only gaps were the tiny ones between the wires. So the drive with the moisture-absorbing gel is in a bag with the power and data cables coming out. I let it sit that way on the counter for a few hours to make sure there was no moisture in the bag, then I put it in the freezer with the cables hanging out (my mom hated this). There's still air in the bag, and if the drive isn't freezing cold it's not going to do anything, so I let it sit in there for a few hours (go big or go home). Then when I plugged it up, I was able to read most of the data. No guarantees, but that's how I did it and it has worked before. Of course, it only does something if the drive physically failed. If there's just data corruption (like, the drive is still actually recognized but maybe not seen as being formatted) this probably won't do anything.

And yea, while I was recovering data, I kept it in the freezer.