Freezing Hard drives?

Zenocided

I'm currently in the process of an attempt to "revive" a 1tb comstar external hard drive using a "suggestion" I've found on the internet

Apparently, the external hard drive just stopped being detected by my computer, or any computer I hooked up to it for that matter. The enclosure powers up , the fan comes on and the hard drives's inside spin. However, my pc doesn't detect the external via the usb hookup. I logically tried other usb slots first. Then I tried my macbook to see if maybe it was my desktop was the problem.

After searching online for what might be the cause, I've found out how badly Comstar Hard drives really were.

Seeing as my 1 year warranty was long over. [Its been 2 years... wow], I opened up the external casing. I figured, its gotta be dust. Its always dust when it comes to computers and fans. Sadly, I only find 2 x 500g western digital hard drives, a puny fan inside the enclosure. No wonder the thing was so silly hot when it was on, that minuscule fan shouldn't have been able to cool 1 hard drive never mind 2 of them. Since this External HD always seem to run hot when it was turned on, I've had a Air filtered fan blasting it for about a year now. Might have been why its lasted to the 2 year mark. My dad has the exact same external hard drive as me as he bought his at the same time as I did. His I believe is still functioning well.

Anyhow, from what I've gleaned from quite a few threads on the internet on Hard Drive failures, I could either:
1. Pay money to techs to extract my data from my hds.
2. Remove the hds and hook them to my computer.
3. Freeze the hds and extract the data in the 20-25mins before the hd defrosts.

I'm attempting option 3 as it obviously states in the topic title.

I'm wondering if anyone else has here has frozen hard drives to retrieve data. I figured being most posters in my favorite podcast [next to AWO] populated by fellow geeks should have possibly attempted something like this.

Also, if anyone else has done this successfully, any tips?

If the freezing works well enough, I'll be moving a small fridge next to desktop to attempt to extract my 900gigs off my external. *cry*

Apreche

There are a lot of people on the Internet that suggest using refrigerators to get technology working. I am always incredibly skeptical of such nonsense. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not, but it's really stupid. Really, you should just remove the drives, connect them to your computer. If that doesn't work, use spinrite. If spinrite doesn't work, then they're gone.

Also, how many people never learn the lesson to back shit up? People never learn. They don't back their stuff up until its them who has the crashing. If you are reading this, and you don't have proper backups of all your important files, make that your #1 priority today. I highly recommend Jungle Disk. What safer place to keep your files than Amazon's servers?

Victor Frost

There are a lot of people on the Internet that suggest using refrigerators to get technology working. I am always incredibly skeptical of such nonsense. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not, but it's really stupid. Really, you should just remove the drives, connect them to your computer. If that doesn't work, usespinrite. If spinrite doesn't work, then they're gone.

That's exactly right, and based on the symptoms you described, it sounds like it's a problem spinrite can fix. The only problem that I've had that spinrite couldn't fix was when a VERY physical one (i.e. the hardrive fell...hard).

Also, how many people never learn the lesson to back shit up? People never learn. They don't back their stuff up until its them who has the crashing. If you are reading this, and you don't have proper backups of all your important files, make that your #1 priority today. I highly recommendJungle Disk. What safer place to keep your files than Amazon's servers?

Again, you're right, but here's the thing: While older people with real jobs have no excuse other than ignorance, some people just don't have the money. For example: I'm a college student, I already have lot's of expenses, my financial aid is barely enough, and I just moved here so I don't have a job in a time and place where there aren't a lot of job options available to me; As much as having a off site backup solution is important to me, and even it being as cheap as it is, It's not high on the priorities list.

Rym

As much as having a off site backup solution is important to me, and even it being as cheap as it is, It's not high on the priorities list.

Even when I was poor and young, I had two smaller hard drivers instead of one gigantic one, and I backed everything that I couldn't replace up. It's pretty cheap to do that.

Also, very few people will have a large amount of irreplaceable data. Unless you are creating movies or substantial amounts of audio content, you could backup every unique digital work you have on a single DVD. Most of the data that people lose and try to replace like this is pirated media in the first place, which is far less important than other works.

Be creative. Writing? Save it on Google Docs. Email it to yourself. Drawing? Get a free account somewhere to host it. Back up your personal, irreplaceable media, and forget about the pirated media collections. Then, cost is not a concern at all.

Apreche

Again, you're right, but here's the thing: While older people with real jobs have no excuse other than ignorance, some people just don't have the money. For example: I'm a college student, I already have lot's of expenses, my financial aid is barely enough, and I just moved here so I don't have a job in a time and place where there aren't a lot of job options available to me; As much as having a off site backup solution is important to me, and even it being as cheap as it is, It's not high on the priorities list.

A 1TB hard drive is about $100. Jungledisk costs me about $1 per month. That's 100 months of backups paid $1 at a time. If you can afford to own a computer, you can afford Jungledisk.

Zenocided

I was pretty skeptical of the fridge idea as well.

Anyhow as for the update on trying out option 3, it obviously didn't work. I'm taking the HDs and connecting them into my desktop to see if I can save anything.
Datawise, I have already moved most of everything off this drive as it was very temperamental. I just like having a trio of external hds to keep a double of everything I work on. 1 down just means I'll lose a small portion of my work.

Going with Apreche's idea of spinrite as it seems to be the most logical choice after trying out the "fun" internet method.

Sadly, I'm about 90% certain 1 out of the 2 x 500gig drives is probably dead. I hear the very very faint sounds of a repetitive click when the external boots up. Anyhow, I'm hopeful I can salvage one drive out of this misfortune.

Jungledisk would have been a viable option only if I was storing 100g of important imformation. Sadly, I have about 1200g of semi-important past "jobs" of which other then being awfully big consume spindals of dvdr's burned off to keep data safe. 1200gigs at jungledisk's 0.15c per gig works out to be $180 per month. Hence why I have the multiple external drives. It just simply cheaper to by a pair of terabyte externals every few of years to replace the old ones.

Apreche

Jungledisk would have been a viable option only if I was storing 100g of important imformation. Sadly, I have about 1200g of semi-important past "jobs" of which other then being awfully big consume spindals of dvdr's burned off to keep data safe. 1200gigs at jungledisk's 0.15c per gig works out to be $180 per month. Hence why I have the multiple external drives. It just simply cheaper to by a pair of terabyte externals every few of years to replace the old ones.

You have to combine my advice with Rym's advice.

What is all of that 1200 gigs? Is it movies and music and such? Is it software? You can re-download all of that stuff. There is no reason to back it up. The only things you need to back up are things which can not be replaced such as papers you have written, videos you made yourself, your personal photos, code you have written, etc. If you can just download something, backing it up is stupid, and paying to back it up is more stupid.

Victor Frost

He said it's files from past Jobs. I keep client files around too but generally they don't take more than a DVD's worth. Have you tried breaking each Jobs data among multiple dvd's? I know it may seem unweildly, but once you do it for the first time, it's easy to just keep up. Also, one of those 300CD binders work wonders for that sort of thing.

As much as having a off site backup solution is important to me, and even it being as cheap as it is, It's not high on the priorities list.

Even when I was poor and young, I had two smaller hard drivers instead of one gigantic one, and I backed everything that I couldn't replace up. It's pretty cheap to do that.

Also, very few people will have a large amount of irreplaceable data. Unless you are creating movies or substantial amounts of audio content, you could backup every unique digital work you have on a single DVD. Most of the data that people lose and try to replace like this is pirated media in the first place, which is far less important than other works.

Be creative. Writing? Save it on Google Docs. Email it to yourself. Drawing? Get a free account somewhere to host it. Back up your personal, irreplaceable media, and forget about the pirated media collections. Then, cost is not a concern at all.

I already do that with my documents with a program whichs syncs them to google docs. And, actually, most of my media collection isn't pirated. A lot of them are CD's that I ripped and got rid of the discs because they were getting scratchy. The rest are pirated, yes, but to separate one group from the other is infeasible at this point. Right now I am using an old 80gb hard drive to backup my stuff, but, again, it's old and may fail when I need it. I'm trying to convince my dad to buy a Windows Home Server so everyone can backup their data easily and with redundancy. Once I have a better source of income than just my PC repair gigs, I'm probably gonna buy a DROBO.

HMTKSteve

Why buy a windows Home Server? You can get a low end PowerEdge server from Dell for about $300. For another $100 pickup a 1TB drive from Newegg. Load it up with a Linux and share away!

Victor Frost

We are mainly a windows household. Getting a windows home server would make backing up everyone's stuff trivial. Just one program installation on each of the computers and that's it; it just works.

Apreche

We are mainly a windows household. Getting a windows home server would make backing up everyone's stuff trivial. Just one program installation on each of the computers and that's it; it just works.

A Linux server is just as easy. All network file sharing things use the same technologies, and all three major OSes are compatible with them.

Victor Frost

Then it must be me because setting up the ubuntu based file server we are using now was a royal pain in the ass. Admittedly, I learned more about linux setting up that thing than any other time. Still, it's not an experience I look forward to repeating.

Apreche

Then it must be me because setting up the ubuntu based file server we are using now was a royal pain in the ass. Admittedly, I learned more about linux setting up that thing than any other time. Still, it's not an experience I look forward to repeating.

Well, you are doing it wrong. It's very easy. You can do it entirely via the gui. The file sharing options are in th emenu.

Victor Frost

The options were there, but things like guest write permissions wouldn't stick after a reboot. Sharing an external USB drive was hard too because root ends up owning it. I ended up giving up and just sharing a directory in my home folder. Again, I ended up learning a lot about linux, but in an all windows house, a windows based server just works better.

Apreche

but in an all windows house, a windows based server just works better.

If you are only sharing files and such, there is no functionality difference whatsoever between a Windows server and a Linux server, besides the huge difference in cost.

Victor Frost

Well, then I must have done something wrong at some point in the process. At any rate, it's working now so this is kinda moot.