On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 12:13:48PM -0700, George Davidovich wrote: <snip> > > If the drive is that bad, it is doubtfull if dd or ddrescue will be > > able to get a good copy. > > Probably true. I hesitate to suggest this, but sticking the drive in a > freezer (preferrably in a ziplock bag) for a few hours or overnight > might help. Stories from people claiming "I swear it works!" go back > years.
Interesting. > To the exent it does work, it might give Kelly enough time to attempt > recovery. If more time is required, he can try and find a creative > workaround for the 5 meter max length for USB cables. Also, > experimenting with dry ice or acetone baths might prove to be > interesting, or at least educational. ;-) Acetone and electronics are _not_ a good mix! Acetone is extremely flammable. It evaporates easily and can form explosive mixtures in air over a wide range of concentrations. Not to mention that it would degrade/destroy printed circuit boards; acetone breaks down the resin that binds the glass fibers in the laminates! Not as fast as n-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone, bus fast enough. I remember this special non-condictive 3M fluid that can be used to cool electronics. A group of hackers dunked a complete PC minus the case and power supply in this stuff. The fluid itself was cooled with liquid nitrogen. They everclocked it something wicked. Not very practical though. :-) Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725)
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