Not to hijack this thread, but a quick question.

Windows Vista told me that my old HDD was failing. The drive still spins and sounds normal. I stuck it in an external enclosure on the new PC to see if it would see anything. It seems like it seeks for a while and eventually tells me that I may need to format the drive before it's useful.

Is there anything that you think I could try that might allow me to get some data off of the drive that doesn't require specialized equipment?

Thanks

Sounds dumb, but put it in the freezer for a few hours, and then try it in the external again.

I usually will put it on a piece of cardboard or something just to avoid condensation sticking to it.

I am still surprised every time it works, even though I've done it 7-8 times.

Yes. :) You want me to reveal my secrets online? :D

Let me see what I still have on my web server and I'll sent you a link via PM.

The freezer trick will work in certain situations. It's best to stick the drive into a static bag with a package of silica.

I've been thinking about the freezer trick, but haven't worked up the gumption to try it.

Like I said, there's nothing super vital that is lost, but there are definitely tons of things that I'd love to have back if I could get it to work even if just for a little while.

Thanks

Ah, yeah, in the freezer in a bag, I meant when pulled out I use the cardboard since it's absorbent vs. just sitting on a table or plastic. Guess I just naturally do the bag thing and forget about it.

Have read a lot of theories as to why it works, but none seem to really explain it, just have had good luck. *shrug*

I'm just guessing here....that this would work if the HD/write-head grease (i.e. bearings) had thinned out. Then the cold environment would thicken the grease and the HD would become "accessable" for transfer(for a little while).

Grease:the problem.

Ah yes, my laptop drive's motor died last year. I had no backups at the time. I had gotten an error message on startup like that a month or so before it failed for good. It worked fine one night, shut it off, then go to start it the next morning and no drive is installed.

I have the drive but have not paid the big bucks for the data recovery. I got most of my pictures back since they were on flickr. The school reports were old and the quarter had just ended, so it worked out ok. I bought an external drive and backup regularly.

same exact thing happened to me recently, with the exception of it still working after it was dropped. I had a program I bought years ago (getdataback) which allows you to recover files off a hard drive that still spins. Took out the hard drive, put it in an enclosure, and was able to recover most of my files. Luckily I did regular data backups. I didn't want to do this ever again, so I ended up putting in a SSD drive, albeit with half the capacity of the original and double the price of a SATA replacement. But so far, so good, and the speed of the SSD amazes me sometimes.