h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, please bear with me.

A laptop hard-drive died yesterday. There's nothing hugely important stored on it apart from 5+ years of photo memories that I'd rather have back. All the important gubbins like VAT returns and accounts are distributed across various media, so I've been a clever boy.

While trawling the interwebs for a solution to something I *know* is terminally deceased, I found a suggestion that looked 'interesting'.

The solution, apparently, is to deep-freeze the offending hard-drive and then plug it back in when sufficiently cooled. Voila, all your data is accessable.

Yeah, right.

But, so many 'bloggers' have reported success that i'm beginning to wonder.

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

I know that article was penned in 2006 and things have moved on a bit in tech, but this poor old laptop is circa that date. I've got a couple of hours before I go to bed. Shall I bung it in on super-freeze overnight?

The only effect I can think of would be to contract the size of any seized tiny moving parts, perhaps unjamming them temporarily ?

It would presumably be stored magnetically on the hard drive. I also really can´t see how it would help, but then I guess it depends on what went wrong in the first place.

Otherwise, there are professionals for restoring important data.

You remember the old pre-paid phonecards for payphones? Looked a bit like a credit card and you inserted them into the phone. There used to be a story that when they were used up, you could stick them in the freezer and be able to use them again after taking them out.

Hi-fi purists also suggested a while back, that freezing a CD made it sound better

Actually thinking about it, don't hard drives use lubricants to work? And aren't those lubricants chosen for their fluidity at the typical operating temperatures found in operating hard drives? I can't help thinking that a frozen hard drive wouldn't function too well when its lubricants go all gloopy.

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THAT's exactly what it's supposed to do, with remarkably good results. Apparently, the 'platters' or spinning disks contract sufficiently to allow free read-head movement where otherwise it was impossible.

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Again, according to the blogs, magnetic fields become stronger the colder they get, so the read-head has a better chance of picking-up the 'signal'.

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I can't vouch for that, but I *DO* know that an old coke-can ring when straightened out can be used for five-minutes free viewing in seaside telescopes - trust me.

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Similar to the above response. Apparently, the magnetical-bitties all line up and dance around with sluggish-idleness giving the circuit-thingies enough time to provide Bang & Olufsen experiences at Panasonic prices.

So, apart from the free telescopic-viewing that I can verify as *real* (having done so on the Isle of Wight) how much of this is urban myth?

I've got 20 minutes before I'll cryogenically dispatch the offending article.

Would it do any harm to freeze it?

Oh, freeze it, definitely. As a scientific experiment on behalf of the rest of us.

When our laptop dies it's because it's overheated, and that's because of stuff caught in the fan. My husband brings it back to life by opening it up and vacuuming it.

But one day this won't work. I'd like to know if freezing it would just let us recover the data we haven't backed up. I mean - nobody backs up at home *daily*, do they?

Mol

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Well, I'll find out soon - 60GB of storage-space is now wedged between a Vienna loaf and a frozen salmon.

My only real concern are condensates on the 'platters'. A thick film of partially frozen ice is likely to do more damage to the electronics and to the surfaces of the individual media than anything I could hope to achieve with WD40, which was my next option.

Watch this space...

I do, because everything important (which includes all my photos), is in a Dropbox folder, which is automatically synched with their servers. (I'd prefer to move to a provider in Europe, out of the reach of the US PATRIOT Act, but never mind that for now.)

TRiG.

Where are the Ubuntu One servers?

I remember being told that car stereo thieves would put the said items in the freezer to reset the password - but I never tried it myself... either stealing or freezing.

If it's currently completely inoperable, I suppose you can't make it any worse. I'd worry about liquid getting in too, though. If I were to do it, I'd remove everything else in the drawer first, and probably the whole freezer. Which probably means I wouldn't do it at all, as I'm a lazy so-and-so.

Put it in a dry freezer bag that is sealed.

Well?

PP

Well, here's the results so far...

After a good few hours of freezing overnight, I took it out of the freezer and attached it to a desktop via an IDE to USB cable. I kept it wedged between two ice packs so it wouldn't heat up too quickly.

It didn't work.

But, it *did* spin. And that's more than it was doing yesterday.

Some commenters have said they've only had success after freezing for a good few days or even weeks, so it's back in the freezer and I'm quietly excited.

Have you tried hitting it with something heavy?

I've heard of freezing being used for car stereos. Also, locked up mobile phones were treated to freeze method to clear the chips menory. I think the crucial thing would be to keep it as dry as possible in a freezer bag, and not to use it until it was thoroughly cleared of any residual moisture. Put it in the airing cupboard after you take it out of the freezer, perhaps next to a small bowl of salt to draw out the moisture.

Or in a bowl of rice. That's what you're meant to do after your phone falls out of your shirt pocket into the toilet. Apparently.

I'm sure I remember Delia doing that recipe...