[alex]

Hey all.

Just a quick tip. Been repairing a pals pc today and sorting out his Western Digital external hdd that had failed.

He obviously wanted all the photo's/video's of the kids etc retrieving from the external.

Just put it into a plastic bag and then into the freezer. This then causes the heads to contract so they're no longer hitting on the platter(s). It then gave me 10-20 minutes (room temp, ambient case temp dependent) to boot up the drive and get the files before the head's 'grew' again.

So if you ever see your drive running very slow or making a bit or a racket (compared to it's usual noises) try this if you fail to get the data off before failure.

[slipend]

Interesting, cheers.

[hAvAAck]

we were discussing this here earlier this month. Glad it worked for you in that instance for sure!

[alex]

Didn't see that Havaack, good to see other people know about it though.

Should'a read that thread fully, would have saved me typing mine. :(

[Hybr!d]

Thanks for the tip mate, will come in hand with my work.

I honestly thought it was just hearsay but hey, i guess it works.