I just saved about $3000

[jasonl]

Tonight was a milestone night in my life. I was able to recover my crashed HD which contained MANY pictures of appliances, songs that I wrote and some from my old band. How'd I do it, I put it in the FREEZER! That's right, the freezer, and a KENMORE at that.

The HD crashed last year and sat in the closet for almost a whole year. I tried to plug it in every now and then to see if I could get a response. Nothing. It was dead as a doornail. So I researched on getting the data recovered professionally. I was quoted $3000 for 250gb of data.. OUCH! Then I read somewhere that you could put a dead HD with seized bearings in the freezer. The cold will make the bearings unstick and it works. Sure enuff. I froze the HD and an hour later, it spun! But that's half the battle, Lord knows if the computer will see it. Plugged it into the USB port, Ding! The drive and all the data showed up. I quickly copied it over to my new hard drive. So now, I'm enjoying what I've missed for almost a year. And it didn't cost one thin dime. Thanks to a Kenmore refrigerator, I can now view all my old pics and videos...

Like this one...

 

[jonv112]

Hard Drive in the freezer...

Never heard of that one before. Thanks for the tip, although I almost always back up my data on a regular basis, for those "just in case" times.

 

[golittlesport]

cool! Glad that worked for you, Jason

 

[appnut]

OK folks, THAT washer is the very particular Kenmore 800 Jason is hunting for. Please take note, when he mentions the Kenmore 800, THIS IS THE ONE. Not an older LK 800 with buttons, THIS ONE.

Sorry Jason, I had to put the ad in as part of celebrating your hard drive recovery.

But that particular Kenmore 800 pictuer is breath taking. Even brough a tear to my eye. I had forgotton about the green stick with the marketing schmooze on the left hand side. Tat thing looks show-room new.

 

[washertalk]

Congrats Jason

Nice picture of your dream machine too.

P.S. get a Zip or at least get some 3.5 floppies

If you can avoid saving any pictures on your computer that is the safest. Download right to removable media. Same with word or financial infor.

 

[jasonl]

I don't remember where I got that picture from. I think it was a machine someone had here but I don't know who. But yes, that is a show-stopping Kenmore 800 all new and shiny. I will drive or pay to ship a mint condition working one like that.

 

[pdub]

Jason

What did you use to plug the hard drive into the USB port? I too have a dead hard drive and would like to try the same thing. The only way I know how is to open the case and try and plug it in, in series with the other drive. I got it to work once, but never since. Is there a special cable you bought and if so, where did you get it?

thanks, Patrick

 

[whirlcool]

I think that if you want to use an disk drive with a USB port, it has to be one of those external drives in the first place. I have never seen a IDE or Serial ATA plug directly into a USB port.

About a year ago a freind of mine told me about the freezer trick when I was working on a freind of mines crashed computer. Unfortunately, it didn't work. And of course he never backed it up. I think the medium most people use for backing up your system are either CD's or DVD's. But you need a writer for those.

 

[flair_range]

USB housing and new motherboards

You can buy a USB external drive housing for like $25 or less that you put your own IDE disk drive into. I just did that when I replaced my motherboard because my new Abit AB9 motherboard will only take SATA hard drives.

The following is severely off topic:

I have built several computers in the past, but things have REALLY changed recently and I had a dickens of a time setting up my new motherboard. I ended up replacing everything except the power supply and CD/DVD drives. What I have found: Many new motherboards with Intel chipsets only support SATA hard drives and will not support IDE (or PATA) hard disk drives. Many new motherboards provide only one IDE connector (in an awkward place on the Abit AB9), which will only support ATAPI (IDE CD/DVD) drives. It looks like motherboard IDE support will be completely going away sometime soon. When installing Windows XP it may be possible to use a USB floppy drive to install the SATA drivers that are required during the install, but don't count on it. I had to install an internal 3.5" floppy disk drive (the new motherboard included a floppy drive cable) just so that I could install the SATA drivers during installation.

After all of that, my new computer did turn out nice.

 

[jasonl]

IDE

That's just like 15 years ago when IDE started replacing the old MFM and RLL drives (remember 5 1/4" form factor?). The new mb's didn't support them at all so you had to use Laplink (via parellel cable) to transfer the data.

I'm using an Asus z70va notebook computer with an external enclosure for my 300gb hd and I bought an extra enclosure for my then-dead 250gb hd. As you can see it powered right up and I was able to get all my data out.

 

[toggleswitch]

COOL! Way to go.

I figured freezing your ball bearings would shrink them.

 

[flair_range]

MFM and RLL drives

A blast from the past. I had completely forgotten about MFM and RLL, I hadn't forgotten 5 1/4" form factor though; I also remember 8" floppies. Lap Link was a great thing in its day and I have used it many times. I am now trying to get used to SATA, it sounds like it should be a Good Thing and I especially like the cables. I didn't see any SATA DVD drives at the local Micro Center yet although they have lots of boxed SATA hard drive kits. They also have dispenser racks full of OEM PATA drives, I wonder when they will start selling OEM SATA drives from dispenser racks.

I have another motherboadd that I bought several months ago taht I am using for a Linux server that has a couple of SATA connectors. I am currently using PATA hard drives on it, I wonder if I could just plug a SATA drive into it and have Linux recognize it.

 

[washertalk]

I like to use 3.5" disks BECAUSE of their limited capacity and they practically give them away. If there is a picture with a virus on it that freezes the disk or computer, there is a limited number of material lost. I have also found that I am able to hunt for the defective problem causer and remove it.

I have had several bad experiences with Writable CDs back in 2000. I had trusted alot of images to a disk. I thought it was great. But if a disk has an error or a picure is corrupt it can ruin the whole disk and render the material as unretrievable. ALL of it.

In writing this though I realize, THAT WAS 6 YEARS AGO, already. Where does time go. I don't think I even had virus protection back then. Perhaps I need to upgrade to a better external storage media. For myself. I've just been too busy.

My point stands though, Jason, don't store materials directly on your computer. And even go as far as to make 2 copies.

 

[jasonl]

Toggle

Yes, freezing them makes them shrink but the best part is turning it on to get it warm again.

I did get worried because the drive condensated at it ran and warmed up, but they are sealed so it kept right on spinnin.

Washertalk, I'm kinda the opposite. I HATE floppies. They're magnetic media and not reliable. I've salvaged DVD's, music CD's, and burned CDROM's of stuff from 6 inches of mud, water, and oil from Katrina. I filled a bucket with bleach, hot water, and detergent and dumped the cd's and dvd's in. Then I filled a ice chest full of rinse water. Washed and rinsed every last one of them and MOST of them are working today. The only ones that didn't survive were the ones that got funk water INSIDE the disc. I tryed that with a VHS tape and it broke. Try that with a floppy and it probably won't work either. Found a CD with my grandma's voice (made from a cassette from 1976). The label peeled off and it looked like hell but it played. Same with a DVD I made of me and my friends goofing off when we lived in Chalmette. Worked like a charm.

 

[flair_range]

I dislike floppies for a number of reasons. I am not sure, but I think that a blank CDR costs less than a 3 1/2" floppy. CD burners and blank CDRs have came a long way since 2000. It has been a long time since I made a CD coaster. Unless the reading side of a CDR is badly scratched, I have not had any problems with reading CDRs. I do not believe that a corrupted file can cause an entire CDR to be unreadable (unless it is the only file on the CDR). Luckily I have not yet had to find out how well CDRs or floppies can survive floods.

washertalk: I can't parse your statement: "If there is a picture with a virus on it that freezes the disk or computer, there is a limited number of material lost." What virus are you talking about that can infect a picture file? If a virus does infect a computer, the virus CAN damage or infect the files on a floppy, a virus wouldn't affect files on an already burned CDR. I suppose it might be possible to write a virus that could damage or destroy any CDRs that are in a CDR burner, but that would be very unusual. It would also be easily prevented; use a standard CD or DVD drive when reading a disk, and use a CD or DVD burner only when you are actually burning a CD or DVD.

 

[mistereric]

"P.S. get a Zip or at least get some 3.5 floppies"

Be careful of Zips and floppies. We do data recovery and make quite a bit of money off of these technologies, more than we do from hard disks. I would make copies onto a CDR, a USB Flash Drive, or a second hard disk long before I would trust my data to a Zip or a floppy. I'd have to have more wires on my desk too, for those, since no Mac has had a floppy drive since 1997. And for the love of greg, stay away from Jaz disks!

As far as CDR, well, its just like anything else. Early floppies were unreliable, and so were early CDRs. My diagnostic CDs are all CDRs (prevents me from loosing or damaging originals) and they hold up for some time... but then again, these are recent CDRs.

I always set up my mission critical machines (netboot servers, filemaker servers for me) with twin hard disks in a raid. If one fails, I just swap in a new one. Takes me out or production for 5 minutes. I'm considering it for my home machine... especially with my pictures and music.

We do the freezer trick here too. I have an IDE to USB cable, I got it for about $13 from CyberGuys. I would reccomend putting the drive in a baggie so it doesn't find moisture and short out. I run the cables into the fridge and connect it to the laptop and work fast.

http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?ProductID=13120

 

[sheerlookhomes]

It worked for you

Hi Jason, a friend of mine has a 'stuck' pc. I'm going to try your method ( in a Whirlpool mind you!) Thanks for the tip.
Your dream machine is GORGEOUS..I hope you get one soon..I know you will make a fab video. BTW does somewhere here have the Kenmore in the pic.

 

[toggleswitch]

oh yes we conversated about condensated.

..did get worried because the drive "condensated"?

Do you mean had some condesate or condensed water? *LOL*

 

[westytoploader]

YES!!!!!!

Well done Jason, that is AWESOME! I remember you mentioning to me last December about your HDD going out and possible data recovery, but I had no idea it would cost that much. The way you said it, I thought the drive motor had gone out completely, not the bearings. Now it makes sense putting it in the freezer.

I've pulled many an MFM drive out of 8086 PCs. Most used 2 separate ribbon cables (the "flat" type of connector similar to 5 1/4" floppy drives) to connect to the controller board, which was also separate. The sounds they make spinning up are absolutely fantastic...the Seagate ST-225 is the best. There was also another 3.5" MFM Seagate drive (30 MB capacity, WOW!) that spun faster and had a VERY distinct whine to it when you turned it on. I believe it was an ST-235 or something like that. Anyone remember those?

3.5" floppies are more of a novelty item, in my opinion, especially with USB flash drives around now (just look at a new computer; one of these drives is not standard equipment anymore, only optional), but it's NOT something we need to eliminate entirely. For some things, I still use them, and when I bought my commercial Dell last month, I made sure it had a 3.5" drive. The strange thing is, this machine is entirely USB. No PS/2 ports for the keyboard or mouse. However, the 9-pin COM1 serial port, and the LPT1 parallel port have been retained. Strange because serial mice aren't really that common anymore, and all of the new HP printers I've set up in the classrooms are USB-only. There is NO parallel interface on the back of the machine.

CD-Rs and CD-RWs are the BEST when it comes to storage...all of my backups are on CDs. I was able to fit all of my personal files (including mp3s, video clips, etc.) on 5 CD-Rs and RWs. By no means the largest capacity, which might make it inconvenient for keeping large volumes of data, but for personal storage, they're great.

--Austin