Re: OT (surprise, surprise) Getting data off dead disk

["Dr John Tankard" <john@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Graham Howe" <graham@s...> wrote:
> I have a bit of a problem at the moment, one of my machines has
suddenly
> failed to boot, with the problem being the hard disk. I have taken
the disk

This trick has got me out of a lot of trouble in the past and on
monday I recovered a customers disk who had not done a backup for
over a YEAR.

Remove the disk and cairfuly wrap it in a sealed plastic bag, put it
in the freezer for about half an hour.

When you remove it and connect it back up , have it out of the
machine, you must keep it dry, in this weather you will get
condensation forming quickly, keep wiping it every few mins

You may get about 10 mins running time.

This method has worked for me I would say 80% of the time with a
failing disks with serious damage. In your case it may not work if
the pc will not see it, this has happend only twice to me, on one
occation it worked.

Also make sure that in the bios you have the drive dectect set to
auto.

Make sure the jumpers are set correctly for the cable position if it
is ATA100 ie the end of the cable is master the middle is slave, some
drives (DeskStar) have a cable select jumper which allows it to go in
any position.

John
(Old wife tale which has worked for me in the past)