I hit that HDD on the table.... and now it works.

[Ponch]

Because when facing a dead HDD, the line between hope and dispair tends to become the line between "rage and won't bother", and because some people like to push that line in the good direction, I'll tell you all what happened last week.

A laptop came in with no HDD recognized. I hooked it with an external (sata to USB) connector. The noise was a loud "bzzzzz, ....bzzzzz,....bzzzzz,....bzzzzz" like a mobile phone in silent mode. A device was found but nothing was appearing in Disk Manager. I just got an other HDD and we reinstalled the computer. It turned out later that a file was really needed from the dead HDD. So I got it out the bin, and tried again. Bzzz Bzzz. I hit it on the desk, holding it vertically, a bit harder, a bit harder, and "TAC" ! there it was! called a colleague to copy the file while still holding the drive (and my breath). Wow. I then took a Ghost image of the drive and it went through, without any error (just an NTFS warning at the beginning). Sometimes you need a bit of luck. B) One more to add to the freezer trick; "hit it hard".

[jaclaz]

Welcome to the wonderful world of "percussive maintenance".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussive_maintenance

Just don't overdo it:

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

I wonder if hitting the hard disk in the freezer could be a valid troubleshooting step someday...

[jaclaz]

I wonder if hitting the hard disk in the freezer could be a valid troubleshooting step someday...

That ONLY works past midnight on fridays with full moon.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

In addition to bouncing our failed disks off tables or putting them in the freezer, I have found a new method: Putting them in the oven.

My son's school data was on the water soaked hard drive, so I put it in the oven and baked it at 60 Celsius for 4 hours. That did the trick, the hard drive works perfect... I backed up all the data, just to be sure. Try to explain to the teacher that you couldn't get your report done because your PC caught on fire. Something like, "teacher, the dog ate my homework..."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/26/exploding_computer_vs_reg_reader/

[jaclaz]

Something like, "teacher, the dog ate my homework..."

Yep , the "PC caught on fire and school data was on the water soaked hard drive" could be added as corollary to #32 here:

http://www.jobprofiles.org/library/students/the-ferris-bueller.htm

More seriously it is UNlikely that water actually entered the mechanical part of the HDD, so, yes drying the disk in the oven at 60° is perfectly "sound" .

jaclaz