Reviving old hard drives

From: Neil Breeden <nbreeden2_at_comcast.net>
Date: Thu Dec 30 11:41:19 2004

Bob,

 

  I've seen this work with IDE drives that wouldn't spin up due to bad
bearings.

 

  Freeze the drive in your freezer then spin it up while it's still frozen.
This seems to free the bearings for a short time so the drive can spin up.
I know of a couple people who used this technique to copy the contents off a
dead drive, they required several freeze passes to get all the data as the
drive tends to warm up quickly once pulled from the freezer and powered up.

 

  The speculation has been that the metal contracts when frozen and releases
stuck bearings, this has always seemed an

'Odd' explanation as the bearings and races should contract at the same rate
assuming similar materials.

 

  Of course this is a last resort option and your experience may vary.

 

-Neil

 

>Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 20:11:06 -0500

>From: "Bob Lafleur" <bob_lafleur_at_technologist.com>

>Subject: Reviving old hard drives

>To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"

> <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>

>Message-ID: <DJauNjVuMhvqgStMVhE00000031_at_dj>

>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>

>Is there a repository of information regarding reviving old hard drives?

>

>Specifically, I have a Seagate ST3390N in a Mac Iici that appeard not to

>spin-up anymore. I'm wondering if there are any "tricks" that might get
this

>drive running again? It's got my running copy of Opcode Vision on it, and

>I've not found any newer MIDI sequencing software that runs on current

>systems that I'm more comfortablr with... I'd love to get my Vision running

>again!

>

. - Bob
Received on Thu Dec 30 2004 - 11:41:19 GMT