Cody,

freezing a drive is a new one to me.  I'd be concerned that moisture
would condense inside the drive on the disk surfaces.

I've pulled drives and spun them (any smooth, slick - clean - surface),
hard & fast -- being careful not to launch the drive off a table, I'd
recommend using the floor -- and them grab them quickly to stop the
drive but leave the actual disk spinning inside.  I discovered this
technique from technicians that use it as one of their non-destructive
techniques.

Steffan

Cody Cauchi wrote:
>
>      Hi all. I am attempting to recover a hard disk for a friend. The disk
> crashed a few days, and ... they thought they had backups ... their vendor
> told them "no problem, we will backup the data" ... and guess what ... it
> wasn't backed up. They had a half-$#@ system of backups and lost some
> important data. Like MANY other out there she was relying on a Vendor, not
> a storage professional, to backup her data. Anyway, enough with my bitching
> ... to the point. I recall reading that in order to recover data of a hard
> disk that will not spin up you can rap it in plastic, throw it in the
> freezer for an hour or so, and then it should spin up when attached to your
> machine ... for a limited amount of time allowing you to retrieve the data
> off the hard disk. Am I correct in my presumption? Am I missing anything?
>
> Cody Cauchi,  Systems Programmer, ITS
> University of Windsor
> 401 Sunset Avenue
> Windsor, Ontario
> Phone - 253-3000 x4435