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200 ways to revive a hard drive
Page 1
www.techrepublic.com
200 ways to revive a hard drive
We based one of our most popular pop quiz challenges on a situation every tech support person hasfaced or will face at least once:
a failed hard drive
. In that particular case, a Compaq Prolinea 4/66 userwas getting errors like "disk 0 error" and "invalid drive specification." Here were the other facts in thecase:
•
The data wasn't backed up.
•
The problem came out of nowhere.
•
The user had accessed Setup and tried to manually enter the settings for the drive type when "Auto"didn't work.
•
There was no startup disk made by this machine.Reviving a drive like that one—even if only long enough to copy its data before you throw the drive in thegarbage—is a tough challenge. When I asked TechRepublic members how they would troubleshoot asituation like this one, we received over 200 solutions, and we heard from a number of TechRepublicmembers who wanted to know “what everybody else suggested.” So we decided to publish this collectionof over 200 ways to revive a hard drive.In editing this document, we tried as much as possible to preserve the voices of the TechRepublicmembers who submitted these solutions. Of course, as the legal blurb at the end of the documentdeclares, we can't promise that
any 
of these tips will work in every setting. But we thought you'd enjoyreading what your fellow IT professionals had to say on this subject. Enjoy!
How to revive a hard drive
Freeze it....................................................................................2Drop it......................................................................................9Hit it........................................................................................10The rest of the solutions........................................................14
 
200 ways to revive a hard drive
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www.techrepublic.com
Freeze it
 
From: Travis Standen
One trick I have learned as a technician, when the problem is data-read errors off the platters themselves,is to
freeze
the hard drive overnight. It makes the data more 'readable,' but for a one-shot deal. If thisdata is critical, and you have a replacement hard drive (which, if it's a drive failure, you probably do), thenyou can hook up your frozen hard drive and immediately fetch the data off before it warms up.
From: Thedeedj
If the problem is heat related, I put the drive in the
freezer
for about 15 minutes to cool it down...sometimes this gets the drive up long enough to copy any critical files...
From: Itguy1
Put the drive in a waterproof sealed bag, put it in the fridge for an hour or so, then have another go.
From: Kelly Reid
Well, I won't start playing with your specific situation, too many steps or possible solutions whereeverything starts "If that last thing didn't work try..."But I'll give you one for free that was a nice hero moment for me. Had a drive where it sounded like thedrive motor was engaging but not getting anywhere, so we stuck it in the office
freezer
for an hour! I'll bedarned if it didn't work. The drive was up long enough to get the data ghosted to another drive and weturfed it, even though it sounded fine at that point. I can't really take credit for it though—I had heard it insome geek bull session but I thought it was some jedi-geek urban myth. Goes to show you that you knowyou're really screwed when you say something to the effect of "Okay, hold on tight, I'm gonna trysomething I saw in a cartoon once but I'm pretty sure I can do it"
From: mpicpu
If this drive isn't spinning up, putting it in the
freezer
for about an hour will usually get the drive spinningagain so you can copy needed files before the drive warms up again. The first thing you want to do is runa disk utility like Norton disk doctor or wddiag (if it's a western digital drive) to verify whether the drive isworking mechanically or not. If it is a master boot record problem, sometimes running Fdisk/mbr willcorrect the problem. It could also be a virus, and a program like F-prot will look at the drive as a physicalunit. As an A+ PC technician I have seen this problem many times. Usually if the drive is not making aclicking sound I am successful in recovering the data.
From: Scott Greving
I've run into this scenario numerous times. One time it involved the main Novell SYS volume on our HPFile Server. I was really sweating as the server would not boot. I took the drive out and put it in a
freezer
 for 30 minutes. I then reinstalled it into the file server and Presto! I was up and running. Needless to say Iquickly mirrored the drive onto another and got rid of the bad drive.In stand alone client systems, the method I've had the most luck with reviving drives from death has beenremoving the drive, firmly tapping the top of its case several times, and then re-installing it making sure allcables are secure. I've had a better than 60 percent success rate with this method.
 
200 ways to revive a hard drive
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www.techrepublic.com
From: jphillips
If the drive is spinning and you are experiencing these kinds of errors, my experience has been that youare out of luck.If the drive is not spinning, I have been able to remove it from the computer and 'spin' the drive on a flatsmooth surface (much like spin the bottle). This will usually free the drive and when placed back in themachine, it will boot. You should immediately back up you data after a successful boot, because theproblem will return.The next 'fix' was actually given to me by a Compaq technician several years ago. I had a drive that wouldnot spin and he told me to put the drive in a plastic bag in the
freezer
overnight and then install back inthe computer. Believe it or not, the drive booted. I have only tried this the one time.
From: John Turcotte
In the past, when a drive has failed after it has been running for a short period, I have removed it from themachine and placed it in a
freezer
for a couple of hours, then hooked it up again. It sometimes will runlong enough to remove the data to another safe storage medium.
From: David Furlow
One of the methods I have used before (sometimes even successfully) is to actually remove the drivefrom the PC, place it in the
freezer
for a day, then quickly put it back in the machine and try to access it.Why does this work? Who knows, but I heard about this tactic years ago, and it has saved my behind ona couple of occasions. (Of course, if it comes back up, back up the data immediately.... Guess that shouldgo without saying.)
From: Keri D.
Hard drive revival:A technique I have learned is if you bring the temperature of the hard drive down to the freezing point byputting it in a
freezer
first and then taking it back out, somehow the condensation from bringing it back toroom temperature helps revive it for about 20 minutes. It can be repeated about 5-6 times tops. Longenough to get out any important files that need to be backed up. It has been proven to work a number oftimes.
From: Christopher Post
How do you bring a hard drive back to life?My situation:Half of a volume set goes south on a WinNT server, no good backup and an angry boss screaming aboutthe data being mission critical.My solution:** A bit unorthodox but, it has saved my butt! **
•
Turn off the server.
•
Take out the failing hard drive and wrap a static bag around it.
•
Throw it in the
freezer
conveniently located in the break room.
•
Pray for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
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