Photo by By Clashmaker
I hope the freezing rain goes away.
I know that, hoping that the freezing rain to go away, or for the sun to come out and dry everything up, is not going to affect the weather either way. But we often do just that in our business. Perhaps at a time when you realize your two backup solutions failed that you carefully set up. You know how important your data is to you and you’re down to one failing hard drive that you “hope” might magically give you that measly 140 megabytes of data to keep your business going forward and not one big giant leap backwards.
This didn’t happen to my data but I had the experience firsthand to attempt a data recovery for this business. After exhausting other alternatives, I was left to trying something that I used to come across over and over online and in forums and was so desperate that I dove in and actually tried it. I used to think it was so bizarre, but I was down to the last resort – popping it into the freezer! Thinking about it, it did kind of make sense that since metal contracts when cold – it just might loosen the mechanical insides enough to get what was needed.
So I gave it a go and wanted to share my experience:
Up until this point I could not even obtain a drive letter from this dying drive. So I stuck it in paper towel and 3 heavy duty zip lock freezer bags and stuck it into my freezer. (This was to avoid moisture from gathering on it). Some people online would say a couple hours and some would say up to twelve hours, so I started with a couple. After a couple hours was the closest I came to retrieving that data, I took it out of the freezer, hooked it directly up to a PC via sata and after a few seconds a drive letter appeared.
I clicked on the drive letter and all the folders populated! I clicked on the folder containing the crucial data and waited……………….…and waited………………….… and it was frozen, not temperature wise anymore, but “locked up” frozen. That was the closest I had ever gotten to that important data, because I then tried to put it in for 5 hours and then 12 hours at a time, which neither one brought me even a drive letter.
This was my experiment, I would suggest not trying this as it might effect a professional from recovering your data. But you should find a back-up solution that works for you and then make sure you verify it often so that you never face a situation like this with your data.
