I'm currently in the business of recovering data from a damaged—and dying—hard-drive (check this question for background info). The drive was dropped while the system was running; and while foolishly I was trying to run testdisk on it, I started hearing—what I assume is—the "click of death".
Now I have read in several places about the "freezer trick" (e.g. on AskDifferent, on Unix SE, on AskUbuntu). The crux of it is as follows (but do read the full instructions!):
- Place the damaged hard drive inside a ziploc freezer bag, so that no moisture gets in. (Use two or even three bags, and note that the bags do NOT need to be isotherm.)
- Place the wrapped hard drive in the freezer
- Leave the hard drive in the freezer for at least 12 hours
- Then connect the drive to the computer and start copying data
- At some point, the hard drive will fail again. When it does, redo the procedure until all data is copied or the drive dies.
(As per a now-deleted post Harddrive in the freezer ever work for you? on SuperUser, two alternative-medicine remedies to try before freezing are: (1) "Place the hard drive on a smooth surface. Grab the ends and physically spin the whole unit around", "just spinning the unit sharply along the axis of the blades" and (2) "In situations where the head has crashed, you can temporarily get it up and running by turning the drive upside down. Keep the drive upside down while you back up your files.")
Question: Is freezing a legitimate strategy to rescue data from a dying hard-drive? Or is this simply a fancy way to definitively brick your disk?
And if this is legit, should one attempt it before trying ddrescue, after trying ddrescue, or should I combine the "freezer trick" with ddrescue (and an associated log file)?
Best Answer
I've done this with known good USB enclosures and operated the drive while it was inside the closed freezer (with my laptop on the kitchen counter).
It rarely helps, there are so many forms of failure, that it's a crapshoot. The Data Recovery experts tell you not to do this, but "seek professional help". How that help got to be professional is by reading and trying stuff with disks they didn't care about.
The most awesome recovery I managed to date was to open a drive and unstick the spindle with a screwdriver and pliers. Shockingly, it ran for a few hours while I recovered most of the data. I didn't even use a cleanroom. I did that after the freezer trick failed.
The most hopeless recovery I tried was a Mac disk where a head delaminated. There, running the disk or trying the freezer trick just continued to destroy the medium. A DR expert would have been able to do a partial recovery by sourcing identical drive mechanics and mechanically transfering the platters. My amateur efforts just destroyed the disk.
Not having the right tools can be a problem too. After my disk froze a second time, I tried to unstick it with the pliers and screwdriver again..... I slipped. The platter was hoplessly destroyed. The DR guys have proper tools to do this and minimize risk.
Best of all the DR guys have the experience to identify the problem without running the disk and listening to it click while your medium is scratched to hell.
If the data is worth anything, it needs to go to the DR guys. If not, the freezer is a good third-to-last effort.
After the freezer I would try the drop-test.
Then try a home-made cleanroom from plastic bags, tape and a clear box. Pop open the drive and see if the heads are gone, if htere are big scratches or if the spindle just won't turn. Be sure to have all your clean tools and your clean drive inside the box before you start. Also a cable to be able to connect the disk to your computer.
Most of this is just learning about disks at this point. Possibility of recovery is remote.