[K12OSN] OT: hard drive emergency -- update

[Yancey B. Jones]

> I'm not familiar with the freezer trick.  I assume it 
> involves putting the drive in the freezer...  Is there a 
> pretty good success rate with this trick, and how long is the 
> drive usually readable for when you do this?  It would be 
> great if I could gain enough time to copy all of the pictures 
> off of the drive.

That's exactly what it is. I have had pretty good success doing this. I
usually put the drive in a plastic bag and remove as much air as I can just
to minimize condensation freezing on the drive. I have had luck with
30minute freezes but have sometimes had to leave it in overnight. The first
thing that I do is either boot up and ghost the drive or hook it to a USB
adapter and try to copy/recover as much data as possible before it decides
to crash again. Sometimes I get a little data and sometimes I get it all and
sometimes it doesn't work at all.

Be aware though, depending on the problem with the drive, you could cause
more damage and data corruption by doing this. If the data is critical,
consider a data recovery company. It does not sound like getting pictures
off though would be worth the cost of sending it to a clean room ;-)

Good luck,
Yancey