I recently struggled with recovering data from a HD that would not run
CHKDSK from another Win XP boot drive. After having tried many things,
I placed the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and found that
I could copy some of the data I wished to recover and store it on the
master HD while it was attached as a slave drive. Once the drive warmed
up, I encountered more difficulty in readying additional data.

Encouraged by the data I had been able to recover, I placed the HD back
in the freezer. When I took it out, and this time while insulated by a
plastic bag so that it did not short the electronics, I packed it in ice
and attached it as a slave drive again. This kept the drive cold
longer, and I was able to recover even more data and for a longer period
than the first effort.

To make a long story short, I was able to retrieve 700 MB of data and I
deemed the effort a success. My question is: Why was data able to be
read when the HD was cold and not once it warmed up? Some articles I
have read seemed to attribute this to mechanical reasons related to the
application of cold. I was wondering if it was not more related to the
effect that the cold temperature might have on the semiconductors. That
is it might reduce the internal resistance enough to cause a signal to
be detected where one would not be detected if warm.

Any comments???

Something either mechanical or electronic is warn out, and is changing
its tolerance with temperature. I have seen this in precision devices,
and electronic components that have become thermo sensitive.

Now that you managed to get your data, it's time to get a new hard
drive. In the future, it would be wise to have some type of reliable
backup system.

--

Jerry G.
======

"Ken" wrote in message
...
I recently struggled with recovering data from a HD that would not run
CHKDSK from another Win XP boot drive. After having tried many things,
I placed the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and found that
I could copy some of the data I wished to recover and store it on the
master HD while it was attached as a slave drive. Once the drive warmed
up, I encountered more difficulty in readying additional data.

Encouraged by the data I had been able to recover, I placed the HD back
in the freezer. When I took it out, and this time while insulated by a
plastic bag so that it did not short the electronics, I packed it in ice
and attached it as a slave drive again. This kept the drive cold
longer, and I was able to recover even more data and for a longer period
than the first effort.

To make a long story short, I was able to retrieve 700 MB of data and I
deemed the effort a success. My question is: Why was data able to be
read when the HD was cold and not once it warmed up? Some articles I
have read seemed to attribute this to mechanical reasons related to the
application of cold. I was wondering if it was not more related to the
effect that the cold temperature might have on the semiconductors. That
is it might reduce the internal resistance enough to cause a signal to
be detected where one would not be detected if warm.

Any comments???

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:17:41 GMT, Ken wrote:

I recently struggled with recovering data from a HD that would not run
CHKDSK from another Win XP boot drive. After having tried many things,
I placed the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and found that
I could copy some of the data I wished to recover and store it on the
master HD while it was attached as a slave drive. Once the drive warmed
up, I encountered more difficulty in readying additional data.

Encouraged by the data I had been able to recover, I placed the HD back
in the freezer. When I took it out, and this time while insulated by a
plastic bag so that it did not short the electronics, I packed it in ice
and attached it as a slave drive again. This kept the drive cold
longer, and I was able to recover even more data and for a longer period
than the first effort.

To make a long story short, I was able to retrieve 700 MB of data and I
deemed the effort a success. My question is: Why was data able to be
read when the HD was cold and not once it warmed up? Some articles I
have read seemed to attribute this to mechanical reasons related to the
application of cold. I was wondering if it was not more related to the
effect that the cold temperature might have on the semiconductors. That
is it might reduce the internal resistance enough to cause a signal to
be detected where one would not be detected if warm.

Any comments???

I don't know exactly why, but it is an often-recommended method in
cases like yours. It is a common failure type, apparently.

Tom

2 jobs ago I used to have to repair HD's & sometimes I'd see something like
this.
I would say it's most likely an overheating IC. All you'd need is Freeze
spray (or a can of compressed air upside down) to find the specific chip.
Or if you were like me, just pull a duplicate PCB out of the bin from a
drive that did fail mechanically & try swapping it. Bios chip must be the
same though

(Yes we replaced Lots of dead drives.)

Typically if it's the mechanicalls failing, you get High Pitched noise, or
the Aluminum Case would get Real Hot from the bearings failing.


jim

"Ken" wrote in message
...
I recently struggled with recovering data from a HD that would not run
CHKDSK from another Win XP boot drive. After having tried many things,
I placed the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and found that
I could copy some of the data I wished to recover and store it on the
master HD while it was attached as a slave drive. Once the drive warmed
up, I encountered more difficulty in readying additional data.

Encouraged by the data I had been able to recover, I placed the HD back
in the freezer. When I took it out, and this time while insulated by a
plastic bag so that it did not short the electronics, I packed it in ice
and attached it as a slave drive again. This kept the drive cold
longer, and I was able to recover even more data and for a longer period
than the first effort.

To make a long story short, I was able to retrieve 700 MB of data and I
deemed the effort a success. My question is: Why was data able to be
read when the HD was cold and not once it warmed up? Some articles I
have read seemed to attribute this to mechanical reasons related to the
application of cold. I was wondering if it was not more related to the
effect that the cold temperature might have on the semiconductors. That
is it might reduce the internal resistance enough to cause a signal to
be detected where one would not be detected if warm.

Any comments???

Jim wrote:
2 jobs ago I used to have to repair HD's & sometimes I'd see something like
this.
I would say it's most likely an overheating IC. All you'd need is Freeze
spray (or a can of compressed air upside down) to find the specific chip.
Or if you were like me, just pull a duplicate PCB out of the bin from a
drive that did fail mechanically & try swapping it. Bios chip must be the
same though

(Yes we replaced Lots of dead drives.)

Typically if it's the mechanicalls failing, you get High Pitched noise, or
the Aluminum Case would get Real Hot from the bearings failing.


jim

Jim,

I appreciate your comments, thanks. Perhaps I should have elaborated
more in my original post, but I wanted to keep the post short so as not
to lose readers. Part of the story I did NOT state was that I did
acquire a like drive with the same firmware and substituted the logic
board in an effort to retrieve the data. In this case the logic board
swap made NO difference. The problem was apparently related to the disk
unit which of course has one IC and the mechanics. This leaves us with
the question as to whether it is the impact of the cold on the mechanics
or electronics that caused the temporary improvement? Any opinion??

P.S. No excessive noise made by this HD.


"Ken" wrote in message
...

I recently struggled with recovering data from a HD that would not run
CHKDSK from another Win XP boot drive. After having tried many things,
I placed the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and found that
I could copy some of the data I wished to recover and store it on the
master HD while it was attached as a slave drive. Once the drive warmed
up, I encountered more difficulty in readying additional data.

Encouraged by the data I had been able to recover, I placed the HD back
in the freezer. When I took it out, and this time while insulated by a
plastic bag so that it did not short the electronics, I packed it in ice
and attached it as a slave drive again. This kept the drive cold
longer, and I was able to recover even more data and for a longer period
than the first effort.

To make a long story short, I was able to retrieve 700 MB of data and I
deemed the effort a success. My question is: Why was data able to be
read when the HD was cold and not once it warmed up? Some articles I
have read seemed to attribute this to mechanical reasons related to the
application of cold. I was wondering if it was not more related to the
effect that the cold temperature might have on the semiconductors. That
is it might reduce the internal resistance enough to cause a signal to
be detected where one would not be detected if warm.

Any comments???