Posted on Tuesday, 5th September 2006 by Casey
Have you ever had a hard drive that just wouldn’t boot and all you could hear was it making a clicking noise? If you have then you know this is usually a bad sign. However, there is still some hope. In most cases you can use this little trick to retrieve your files. Just follow these simple steps.
The first thing you want to do is remove the drive from the computer and put it in a sealed plastic bag to avoid condensation. Then put the drive in a freezer and leave it overnight. When you are ready, pull the drive out of the freezer and hook it up quickly. Boot up the drive and start backing up the files. Act quickly because you may only have around 20 minutes to do this. I have seen some reports however, of this fixing the problem all together.
Yes I know this sounds crazy and believe me I thought it was until I actually saw it work. I’m not exactly sure why this works but I’m guessing it has something to do with the heads retracting because of the cold temperature. If you have had any experience with this feel free to post about it.
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Posted in Hardware, Tips | Comments (38)
September 11th, 2006 at 4:23 am
I am a computer repair technician for a major movie studio and have been fixing computers for over 10 years and I can say that this is the first time I have ever heard of this type of “repair”. However I could see it working, at least in the short term but I seriously doubt it would actually repair the drive for any lenght of time beyond data backup. If this works for you immediately backup your data. DON’T EXPECT THIS TO FIX YOUR DRIVE PERMANTLY OR AT ALL AND REGULARLY BACK UP YOUR DATA, IF YOU DO YOU WONT HAVE TO WORRY! Also I would double or triple bag the drive if you try this because you really don’t want moisture in around or on the drive at all.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Yes I agree Josh that no one should rely on this to fix the problem permanently. I would just recommend using it long enough to backup your data and restore it to another drive. I did, however, read another article where a guy said his drive was still going strong a year later after doing this. I probably wouldn’t trust it though.
September 16th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
I have used this technique for many years to recover data from dead drives. If you have a failing electronic component, it may work fine when cold, but dies once heated. If it’s a mechanical problem, cooling down the drive will allow the lubrication in the mechanisms to thicken giving a few minutes of usage to recover data before failure. I had one drive that was so bad once that I had to hose it down with the liquid refrigent from cans of compressed air every 30-40 seconds. I have since relocated my small fridge in my lab next to my test bench with a external USB enclosure in the freezer portion. This is a disaster recovery technique and will not fix a problem with the drive. So once you get the drive operational, get all the data off that you can before it fails again.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Good idea John with moving the fridge to the test bench. I can also say that I have seen this technique work. As said above, always back up your data so that you don’t have to worry about failing hard drives.
September 18th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
This is also the same for microsoft xbox hard drive failures. My friend’s xbox died on him and I can’t remember if he called microsoft or if he found it on a wesbite. But it temporarily fixed it so he could get his saved information off of it. So it does work, just temporarily.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:12 am
I started using this technique a few years ago when working as a desktop technician for an automotive parts manufacturer. We would often receive laptop from our general managers that would no longer boot (toshiba satellite series). Once we determined that the drive wasn’t spinning, we would place them in an anti-static bag and then inside 2 ziploc brand freezer bags. Once frozen over night, we took them out and transfered all the data and then ordered new hard drives.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Dry ice?
Thank you for posting this, it sounds like a great trick and makes plenty of sense. Has anyone tried using dry ice instead? The ice does not melt (since it is solid CO2) and should cool the drive to at least -20 to -30 degrees Centigrade, if not lower (the ice itself sublimes at -78 C).
October 6th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
[...] Another option is to try a very successful method I discussed in the previous article titled Put Your Hard Drive In The Freezer To Recover Data. [...]
October 9th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
I’ve used this process several times. I am always impressed when the drive allows me to pull files from it.
One time when it did not work, I filled a zip lock bag with extremely hot water and placed it on the cold drive. The temperature differential seemed to free the bearings in the drive allowing me to get at the data
February 5th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
As one who has worked intimately with designers of HDD’s I can tell you there are may things that may cause this to “work”. In the case of “permanent” recovery, the cause is usually a stuck voice coil (moves the heads). Sometimes a surge will cause the voice coil to move farther than it is supposed to, and temporarily “jam” internally. This is a consideration that is usually accounted for when designing HDD’s, although manufacturing tradeoffs can allow it to occur under extreme circumstances, such as when the drive is very hot & the voice coil is overdriven, because of metal expansion the heads can move to a position they normally wouldn’t, causing a jam. One other mechanical problem might be the circuit board itself. One small bad solder joint when heated enough will lose contact due to heat extension, and when cooled make contact again. The same can be true for a crack in the copper trace layer on the circuit board. These can be almost impossible to trace down having done it for HDD mfgr “autopsies” (they want to know why a drive failed too)
One other strange thing involves the silicon electronics. I have been wokring with solid state devices since 1970, and I never cease to be amazed by a phenomen I occasionally see, whereby “silicon” repairs itself. A shorted transistor will un-short, and then perform normally. Usually this is accomplished by cooling the device. I think that the contraction must re-connect the silicon atoms somehow.!? Sometimes they have been subjected to very high voltages, and cooling them has rarely causd them to work again. I have had components that fail under heat & when I cool them with “Freeze Spray” they recover & wokr normally until they heat up again. In rare instances, they never appear to fail again - very weird
March 20th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I have a Maxtor that went bad in 6 months. Sounds like the arm is stuck. I am going to try the freezer method, sounds silly but I am ready to try anything to get this thing to work…
March 30th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I wonder if anyone has ever put the drive in an enclosure and kept it in the freezer or fridge and ran the cables back to their computer? Could this make it run long enough to recover large amounts of data?
March 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I want everyone to know about my experience with my hard drive. I had seen this posting about freezing the hard drive to get it to work. I had my laptop hard drive crash after a vacation where I had downloaded all vacation pictures and no backed them up. Besides having around 3000 other family pics plus all my family history material. I had sent my hard drive off to have data recovered. They told me $1500.00. I could not afford this sum. I thought what did I have to lose. I would try this method. My hard drive was majorly damaged they said. The first two times of freezing did not work. The third time I froze the hard drive only in two freezer zip lock bags for 20 hours. When I tried it no such luck it still made the horrible clicking noise and would not reboot. It kept telling me to put in the system recover disk. I left it running for awhile hoping that maybe it was too frozen. After about 20-30 minutes, it quit making the clicking noise but was still giving me the intel boot failed messages. I did CTRL ALT DEL the screen went black. Nothering happened and then I thought maybe it went off. I started the computer again and lo and behold I swear it started booting windows xp up. I held my breath and got my external hard drive plugged in and I swear on my childrens lives I got almost two hours of it working. I downloaded 4,484 pictures and anything else I wanted. I was through so I turned it off. I turned it back on and it wouldn’t work again and of course was making the horrible clicking noise. I can’t still believe it but this is the truth. I am so grateful. To me with my family pictures saved, it is a computer miracle. Thank you Thannk you, Thank you.
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Thank you for the great advice! It worked like a charm! After a hard drive failure, I gave up trying to get my data back and bought a new one. I was ready to toss the old one away, when I read this article. It not only worked long enough to get everything back, it’s still working fine as a second drive. (and I learned to back stuff up more often)
Thanks again.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I didn’t know how to take the hard-drive out of my laptop, so I just put the entire computer in the freezer over night. I guess I didn’t use enough bags because when I took it out there was condensation all over it. Not wanting to short it out, I let the computer dry out for 48hrs before turning it on. It started up with no problem and it has now been working fine for the last two weeks! Crazy! I have backed-up all my data and was going to toss the laptop, but now I am going to see how much more life I can get out of it. It’s only 7 years old!
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I just found out today that my hard drive is dead. I called every data recovery business and as Beverly stated they want 1500 or more. I have very priceless pictures on my hard drive of my children. What is the best type of zip lock bag should I purchase or do I need to buy something more durable
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
A regular zip lock bag should be fine. Just make sure that no moisture can get in.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
So, I have a Western Digital External HDD that stopped working (something about cyclic redundancy?) while I was trying to transfer a massive amount of data from it to a new external. Now, when I turn it on by plugging it in, it tries to boot, but ends up ramping up, then clicking, slowing back down, ramping up, clicking, etc. again and again…so I promptly unplug it…
Any ideas if this freezer thing will work? I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try…do I need to take out the internal part to freeze or can I put the whole thing in there?
Thanks!
June 5th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Sam,
You will need to put the whole drive in there. Just make sure you put it in a zip lock bag first.
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I have used the freezer technique twice and was able to recover the data to a working primary drive. I have also tried “Component Cooler” spray also on some drives. I think I’ll try CO2 next and see how that goes.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Ok, I have the same clicking (I could use a better word) problem. So tonight ill grab a zip-lock and try it. I’m getting different times to keep it in the freezer though. Any accurate or “safe” times to trial this??
August 5th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Although this technique works in certain circumstances, there are many cases where it will not. Freezing had gotten a lot of mileage in recent years as a recovery method, but most people that have touted it hve no idea why it works, or when to apply it. Their good luck may be your bad luck if your problem is different than theirs.In 99% of the cases that it works, it is because of the head arm. For those of you that may not know, the heads ride above the surface of the platter at a predetermined distance. When the platter is not spinning, the heads are at rest against the park post, and sitting on the platter. When you power up the drive, the heads and arm do not move away from the park post to 0 sector until the motor is at full speed. This is because the distance between the head and the platter is actually caused by the air currents in the drive. When the platters spin, they obviously create air currents. The inside of the drive, and the aerodynamic design of the arm catch this air current and the air current causes the heads to float at a certain height. If the drive motor slows, or you have a power brown out, the heads can hit the platter, causing a “head crash”. I said all of that so it is easier to understand why freezing works.
If the motor starts to slow from age or whatever, or something happens to the drive that the heads aren’t floating at the right height (too low), they won’t read the sectors properly. When this happens, the drive tries to reset itself by sending the heads back to the park post and then setting out fresh to find 0 sector again. When the heads continue to not find 0 sector, this cycle repeats continuously, and the clicking or knocking you hear is the arm hitting the park post. The clicking itself is not harming anything, although it sounds bad! What the freezing does is increase the distance between the head and surface, re-establishing that gap. It is only in this instance that freezing will work. If the heads have crashed or are dead, which will also cause the clicking because the heads can’t read anymore, freezing will do nothing. If heads are dead, then heads are dead. Here is a little tip to tell if your heads are dead, or if there is still life in them and something else is the problem. Plug the power to the drive without hooking the drive to the computer. Just power. If the clicking starts immediately, either the heads or the controller are dead, and no freezing or anything else will get your data. The only fix for this is a clean room to replace the heads first. If there is a 2 or 3 second or more pause before clicking, or you hear the arm seeking before the clicking, then freeing might help. The problem with freezing is that it is a path of no return. If you freeze the drive and DON’T get what you want, most times the clean room can’t even help you now. So only use freezing as a last resort and when you KNOW the budget doesn’t allow a clean room.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Hey Ste,
Leaving it in the freezer overnight while you sleep should be sufficient. You could probably get away with leaving it in for a shorter time frame but this is usually how long I leave it in for.
Kevin,
I really appreciate your clarification and insight. It makes a lot of sense.
August 8th, 2007 at 7:27 am
I have not tried freezing a drive yet, but was thinking if putting the drive in a bag and using one of those vacuum sealing machines for food storage would be good to keep moisture from entering?
August 12th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Everyone talks about drive failure I’m wondering what are some of the failures that you guys are having. I get invalid boot disk. Is this something that a freezer might fix for a few minute
Rick
August 21st, 2007 at 1:41 am
One of my college buddies told me that I should freeze my hard drive to recover data and back it up to a new drive. I looked at him like he was messed up on drugs, but I listened to him and decided to give it a shot. To be completely honest it actually worked. I placed my hard drive next to frozen pizza and chicken nuggets and left it there for 4 hours. Than I used this frozen hard drive as an external drive to recover data from it to my new already installed drive in the computer. I was really excited to see that this trick worked, from now on I tell people to do the same and they look at me as I was tripping on something.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I tried freezing it but all that came up afterwards was ‘invalid boot disk,’ just like before i froze it. Would it work if I froze it and tried again? The only change that occurred was that there was less noise coming from the drive. It used to make screeching noises, and now it does not. If I tried again, would it get better? Please advise. Thanks.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Hi Lillie,
Unfortunately, this isn’t a guaranteed fix so if it didn’t work the first time it’s probably not going to work if you try it again. Your only other option might be to send it off to a data recovery service.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Oh, alright, thanks Casey. I hope they can at least fix it for me.
September 9th, 2007 at 2:03 am
I’m going to try this later today…I have 160 gigs of precious data(family pictures,videos,years old data) on a Samsung SP1614N I cant retrieve(yes I know back up)
Excellent advice above, after spending ages trying all sorts I stumbled across this site.
I will let you know how it goes
Tcm
September 10th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
didnt work…….oh f*ck…….deep frozen it for a go next week when i get back from Russia.
September 12th, 2007 at 1:23 am
can someone recommend the best software for recovering data from a crashed harddrive. it is showing up in windows explorer but will not let me access it. I want to try use software before putting it in the freezer.
September 12th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Snx,
Maybe this article will help. http://www.caseytech.com/how-to-recover-data-from-a-crashed-hard-drive/
Casey
October 13th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
After a power outage computer would not start.
Bought computer with basic CD rom drive and Xp
Pulled the old hard drive and froze it over night WALLA couldn’t believe it booted when I put in new computer. You are a miracle worker
But now I can’t send files to Cd Rom.works fine reading material on disk but cannot send files to it.
Shows up as F drive. when using SEND TO or SAVE AS ’says Selected drive not in use. Check disk to make sure disk is inserted is inserted”
I’m elated to have my old files back but now I can’t save them on disks in case it ever happens again
Hope this is not off topic. Greatly appreciate any help
Lou
November 28th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Hi.
Good design, who make it?
September 14th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Hey! Everyone I told about this idea told me that it was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard-especially all of my tech loving friends. I tried it because I had nothing to lose, and to my shock and happiness I was able to access my drive and pull about 35 gig of data before it failed again. I couldn’t believe it!!!! All of my friends were amazed. Thanks for the advice.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Also, apparently reading more about my drive this failure for no apparent reason is nothing new. From everything I’ve been reading stay away from Western Digital My Books. Any suggestions on a good manufacturer/external?
September 14th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the comments. I’m surprised that you have been informed to stay away from the Western Digital My Books. We use them at work and haven’t had any issues with them. I especially like the My Books that contain dual hard drives for mirroring. That way, if one fails, your data is still safe on the other. As far as other brands of external hard drives go, I’m not sure.