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The "freezer trick"

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18 replies

by jrmarr

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While working normally recently, I left my workstation to get some coffee. When I returned, I had a blue screen and my hdd was making a click-click... click-click sound. All attempts to reboot were unsuccessful, even in other good casings; the drive was apparently unreadable. Someone told me to try the "freezer trick:" I put the drive into an external enclosure and froze it overnight. Next day, I plugged the usb from the bad drive into my laptop and the SOB started reading it! It's still not bootable, but I was able to copy all personal files onto the laptop with no glitches. 99% of the files were backed up anyway, but what a relief on the other 1%. Everyone I tell this story to looks at me like I'm an idiot. Has anyone out there had success with the freezer trick? Oh yeah, and does anyone know what file extensions I should 'search' in order to copy Outlook emails, address book, and IE/Firefox bookmarks, since I obviously can't "export?" Either way, what an interesting option... and I have know idea why it worked...

18 replies

by w2ktechman

but I have let a drive sit for a few hours and cool down. Then I have gotten some data from it and done it again. I would think that a freezer would cause condensation and more problems though.

by mjd420nova

Freezing is one of those last ditch efforts to recover an otherwise unreadable drive. Applying heat works sometimes too, on the kind that refuse to boot after being shut down over night or longer. I often removed drives from the unit, connected it using extension cables and physically rotated the drive in my hand to work loose stuck platters and if you know the internal construction of the drive, you can even lossen stuck heads too. One of those if all else fails attempts to recover data that hasn't been backed up. OOPS.

by jrmarr

Yeah, isn't it strange why something such as this would work now and then. Sure beats sending the drive to a recovery joint and paying mondo bucks!?!

by jrmarr

So let's say you send the drive to a highly qualified data recovery professional and pay - what - $500? $750? $1,000? Then find out "oh yeah - we put the GD thing in the freezer overnight and it was all good!"

;)

by mjd420nova

What the recovery places will do is try all the tricks without disassembly. Then to meet the guarantee recovery price, they'll take it into a clean room, disassemble the enclosure and swap the platters out into a known good unit and recover the data that way. Thats why it's so expensive, having to have all those mechanisms for all the different types and maintaining a clean room takes some bucks too. The capital investment is huge.

by tenceladmin

I used to do this all the time when I was a bench tech many years ago, and had about 80% success rate of recovering data. I would seal the drive in an anti-static bag with a small bag of desiccant and freeze it for about 24 hours. However, I usually only did this to hard drives that refused to spin up. Metal shrinks when it is frozen and expands when it is hot. Back before fluid bearings, freezing would cause a seized drive motor to spin back up just long enough to back up the data. I would not think that it would work so well for the "click of death", which usually results from the heads losing their position information on the platters, causing the heads to slam back to the home position. It is possible that yours was the rare case of a power or controller board problem.

To get your Outlook data, look for *.pst and *.pab files. Your FireFox bookmarks are in an html file located under your profile (look for the Mozilla directory). IE bookmarks are shortcuts located in the Favorites directory under your profile. You should consider using something like Foxmarks to save your bookmarks online.

by charliespencer

I have had occasional success firmly striking the drive a single time on a hard surface (work bench, etc.), but I have to be VERY desperate before I try that one. I think I'd put freezing (with a desiccant, as TencelAdmin suggests) ahead of striking.

by thechas

There was an old TR download from 2000 that listed 200 ways to revive a dead hard drive. Freezing the drive was number 1 on the list.

TR seams to have lost the download.

I still have the ZIP file and am willing to share it. Contact me via peer-mail if you want the file.

Chas

by cushman

I've been a computer tech for almost 20 years now and I have frozen more drives than a Popsicle vendor. So I guess the answer to the question is "yes, it works". Many drive failures are due to heat stress (and old age) kind of like what happens to me occasionally. As drives age the value of components can change and throw off the servo mechanism that allows the head to track the spinning platter inside. Freezing a drive will (if you are lucky) lower the resistance in a bad solder joint or a failing resistor and give you a brief window of opportunity to recover data. Another explanation is that freezing the drive makes it think that it is at the North Pole to see Santa and the drive spins merrily around for joy and grants you your Christmas wish.

Merry Christmas All

by skated0rk

how long after you take the drive out of the freezer are you allowed to boot? I added freezing all my 40+ of my companies HD's to my scheduled monthly matainence rutine after reading this article. I went out and bought a big freezer and let them sit overnight. I am ready to reinstall, just give me a boot duration? k!
j/k. but for real. how long before you boot?

by helpdeskdude

Been there and done that! It didn't work for me. I took an old hd that had some SERIOUS errors on it and wouldn't boot. Tossed it in a freezer bag sealed it up tight and put it in the freezer overnight. Next day I got my system ready to put the hd in and see what would happen. By the time I got the hd in my system it had started to thaw out and with "thawing out" comes condensation A.K.A. - WATER. This hd was dripping all over the place. It was so wet that I didn't DARE start up the computer. There was water on the mobo, the memory and everything else.
I took out and dried it off and let get to room temp. Then I reinstalled the hd after drying out my system (LOL) and still it would not boot.

So from my experience it's not worth the trouble you go through.

Now if you take one of the vaccume sealers and try it, that might work. But what you run into is the air inside the freezer bag and condensation afterwards when you take it out.

Hd's are cheap, go get you a new hd.

Oh also remember.... BACK IT UP! :)

by charliespencer

Several people have included the warning that you need to include a desiccant in the bag with the drive. It will absorb the moisture in the bag. Leave the drive in the bag until it reaches room temp to prevent this problem. Remember, don't eat the silica gel...

by thechas

Up here in the frozen north, we don't normally have enough humidity in the air to have the amount of condensation you experienced.

I would not want to connect a frozen HDD if the room humidity was above 30% or 40%. You had to have had well over 70% humidity to have water dripping off of the drive.

I also would not mount a drive for data recovery. Just run power and data cables onto the bench and set the drive up on blocks. That way, if condensation should collect, it won't cause other system problems.

USB or other external drive enclosures would be good for this. You could soak the entire enclosure and then place the drive in an insulated cooler while recovering the data.

Chas

by nodisalsi

Since you are apparently able to access the HD I suggest you copy the whole directory C:\Documents and Settings to somewhere from where you can recover lost data without fear of more failures.

AFAIK: Outlook files are in Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst

Mozilla Firefox bookmarks in Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<unreadable gibberish>\bookmarks

by mrfawcett

I have done the "freezer trick" and saved many customers data on a failed drive. I use a food saver to protect the drive.

The file extensions for Outlook are: pab(address book), pst(personal folders), pob.

by ms

we once had an overheating raid card... tried the freezer trick... and it worked just long enough to ghost everything off it! :D

by doublebarrel

I have frozen many hard drives and have about a 50% success rate. If you did it right away the success is much more likely. I had to freeze one twice to get all the data (there was lots) and it worked both times. I have found that overnight in the freezer seems to be the best. Be careful of condensation when you take it out (a large problem this close to the coast) and the idea of putting it in a USB enclosure is the best. I wrap them in a towel and freeze them, then unwrap them just before plugging it in to the computer I use to pull the data with.

by sura.jan

But i'm doing some more experience with frozen computer when only Reset or Power off functions - HD LED lights continually: power connectors from Power Supply to disks are bad quality, they are loosing contact. System cannot handle this error, you can wait the whole night and nothing happens. Just switch power off and repair the connector.

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