How to revive a hard drive
*Drop it
*Hit it
*The rest of the
solutions
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.
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...
Put the drive in a waterproof sealed bag, put it in the fridge for an hour or so, then have another go
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"
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