Blog: The Life Of A Supreme Ruler

Wow, that old trick actually works!

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• General

— orudge @ 14/09/2006 12:37 am

Yesterday, in a last-ditch attempt to save my hard disk, I put it in the freezer. It’s an old trick – you stick it in the freezer, the parts inside it contract, and then expand again, in theory loosening up whatever got stuck in the first place. I figured I’ve give it a shot. Took it out this afternoon, plugged it in while still cold… nothing, the disk was still clanking away and not reading correctly. Sigh, my disk is dead then, I thought. However, tonight, I thought I’d give it one more shot, now that the drive had heated back up to room temperature… and it worked! that old trick worked! The disk is still working happily now, which leaves me with a bit of a problem. I can’t send it back when it’s working nicely… I’m leaving it on tonight. “Hopefully” it’ll die again. I don’t trust the disk as it is, seeing as it blatantly could die at any minute. (I did read one story the other day of a guy who put his hard disk in the freezer. It continued to work then for over a year). If it still works after a week or so (using it for “safe” things like watching videos – no new data on there), I’ll buy another 300GB HD, RAID-1 the two of them, and hope it all continues to work. I am VERY glad to have my data back now, anyway… a better backup scheme is in order, I think! Whee! 😀