I just happen to have a recently dead external hard drive and gave this a try this morning. The problem with my external drive was that the computer would not recognize it even though it was getting power and "spinning" inside the case. I am planning to return the hard drive since it is only 8 months old but all the books and backups stored on it will be gone for good. So I put it in the freezer for 4 hours and then plugged it in and connected it to the computer. It was sluggish about starting to "spin" but it did get revved up and made the normal noise. But it still was not detectable by the computer. It is not a computer problem since my old external hard drive is functioning well on the same computer. The old one is only 150 gb however, which is barely enough to back up the laptop. I will say I am frustrated with the Sea Gate one that died. I purchased it on Black Friday and used it not only to back up but to hold the only copies I had of many other files. now they are gone. I guess I need an external drive to back up the external drive. So, anyway, the freezer thing was a waste of time. I am letting the hard drive spin for a few hours since taking it out of the freezer caused condensation on the outside and the inside as well I presume. Hope this helps, Sherrie Gosling
----- Original Message ----- From: "Donnie Parrett" <deparr...@prtcnet.org> To: "Blind-Computing" <blind-computing@jaws-users.com> Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 1:30 AM Subject: [Blind-Computing] What To Do When Your Hard Drive Crashes Hey Guys, I received this message from a group list that I am a part of, and I wanted some of you to read it and see if this really works or not. I don't know what good it would do to do what she said she did, but maybe some of you can shed a little light on the subject. Here is the message: I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything to this list for a few days, but I had a major crash of an external drive, which had all of my music collection on it, and I've been working feverishly to try and recover what I can from that drive the past few days. Fortunately, I was able to recover a lot, but the drive, itself, is shot. I wanted to share a tip with you all that helped me save most of my music collection that was on that drive. We put my damaged drive in the freezer for a couple of hours and then immediately took it out and hooked it up and within minutes I was able to copy things from it onto a safer drive. I ended up having to place my drive in the freezer a couple of times, just to be able to copy the data from it, but it did work, so if you ever have a hard drive or external drive crash, and you would like to try and get the data from that drive, try putting the drive in the freezer for a few hours and then immediately put it back into your computer or hook it up to your computer, and try and get off what you can, before it totally goes. I have to admit that when we first learned of this technique, we were really skeptical, but this time it did work for me. My husband works on computers and he learned this trick as part of his tech training. Please join us on Skype Monday thru Friday at 8:00 EST for our Morning Skype Prayer Time. Contact Me At: Donnie Parrett 1956 Asa Flat Road Annville, Kentucky 40402 Home Phone: 606-364-3321 Church Phone: 606-364-PRAY Skype Name: Donnie1261 Email: deparr...@prtcnet.org For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
