WD 500GB My Book External HD - Freezer Recovery Method

[Freis968]

I have been reading all that I can find about hard drive recovery and I have even gotten quotes from these companies that you have to be a millionaire to afford so, without any more mucking about I guess I am going to give the "freezer" method a try.

My question is, what is the recommended procedure for this. Just stick the hard drive into a static free bag and leave it in the freezer for how long? I have read over night, two hours, a few hours? Can I get some feedback from some of you on your experience with this?

Basically, my USB external hard drive makes about 4 clicks or so and then just stops spinning. When I go into Disc Utlitily it shows the GB size as having 1,000,000GBs. I cannot access the hard drive at all.

So, with that being said and with the fact that I cannot afford to have some "white suited" alien dude work on my drive, I need to rely on drastic measures.

 

[Freis968]

Today is the big day!

My hard drive has been in the freezer for over 10 hours now.

I will post the results and perhaps I will get lucky or will have to get the hammer out and smash the drive to "smithereeens"

 

[Mpulsive81]

yeah that's what I tried doing with my factory hdd a while back. I didn't have any luck with it after leaving it in overnight. I guess it was really toast. I kept the hdd but in all honesty i think what's in it is just dead. It was a lesson learned for sure. Post up how it goes and we're rootin for ya!

 

[Freis968]

Well, I went to CompUSA and bought the wrong external hard drive enclosure. I thought they were all the same in terms of connections...boy was I wrong.

I will have to return it tomorrow and try again.

Will keep you posted...

 

[Freis968]

No luck...after being frozen for 24 hours I took the HD out and hooked it up to the external hard drive enclosue and then to my Mac Pro and it just kept making the same clicking sound and then just quit spinning. It would not mount. I even fired up the demo trial for Data Rescue II and that would not locate the drive either.

HAMMER TIME!!!

Well, atleast I have some experience with this freezer option. For me it did not work....

Luckily, all is not lost. VHS versions of the video I had on there exist, it is just trying to get my friends to let me borrow the tapes that is the issue currently. Only about 5% of what was on there is lost forever.

 

[quasinormal]

I'm sorry, but I believe as the 500GB My Book has fluid bearings it would not have worked anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_bearing

 

[ChrisA]

I know of one person who repaired a drive by taking it apart and removing the platters. He bought a new identical drive and put the old platters in the new drive. One must be very careful and keep everything spotlessly clean. But this was a few years ago. Likely the newer dries are even smaller inside and harder to work on.

I gues it goes without saying, make backups. The rule of thumb is to have data on three different media and at two different geographical locations. To do this you'd need three external backup drives and rotate them to an off site location.

 

[Freis968]

I know of one person who repaired a drive by taking it apart and removing the platters. He bought a new identical drive and put the old platters in the new drive. One must be very careful and keep everything spotlessly clean. But this was a few years ago. Likely the newer dries are even smaller inside and harder to work on.

I gues it goes without saying, make backups. The rule of thumb is to have data on three different media and at two different geographical locations. To do this you'd need three external backup drives and rotate them to an off site location.

Perhaps I can talk to you friend about how to go about this?