My hard drive on my Mac gave up on me a few days ago. Was worried as all my photos etc were on there and stupidly not backed up!

Didn’t panic too much as believed that an appointment with Apple at the Mac Store would soon sort it. Took in the Mac and after a quick diagnosis from them they advised the Hard Drive was dead and would need replacing. I asked about recovering data and they just advised that all I could do was send it to a specialist who would attempt to recover data from it but due to the difficult process it would be very costly.

Needless to say I was gutted. I was telling a friend of mine about it and he said ‘stick the Hard Drive in the Freezer and it will work again’. Obviously I thought he’d finally lost it but as I had nothing to lose. Got a cheap HD reader and put the dead HD in the freezer for a couple of days. Took it out, connected it to the Mac via the reader and low and behold, it sprung into life. I quickly transferred all my data onto the new HD.

So, how does that work then? My friend doesn’t know, he said he’d just heard it works.

it’s a mac it’s magic don’t ask

We used to use about 3 desk fans at work with a bad batch

That’s an old trick that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t
Gently tapping the drive with something can sometimes bring a drive back for enough time to grab some files also.

Sometimes the read heads can get slightly mis-aligned and putting the drive in the freezer makes the disc contract a bit so they line up with the right tracks. Maybe.

it’s a mac it’s magic don’t ask

This sounds the most logical reason.

I’ve used that trick a few times – just have to make sure it’s in a sealed bag with one of those small anti-moisture packets….

You can’t really say putting it in the freezer made it work, it could have just been moving it around, unplugging it, plugging it in etc.
The one thing for sure you can say is hard drives fail. back them up. But you don’t need me to tell you that!

“There are those who backup their data, and those who have never had a disk fail on them”

“There are those who backup their data, and those who have never had a disk fail on them”

………. and those that don’t have anything electronically stored of any great significance

have you now got a backup strategy in place for when the new hard drive fails?

You can’t really say putting it in the freezer made it work, it could have just been moving it around, unplugging it, plugging it in etc.

With some confidence I think I can. We spent hours, plugging it in, disconnecting it, even just tapping the bloody thing. Nothing.

Out the freezer and immediately it started working.

have you now got a backup strategy in place for when the new hard drive fails?

A stock of freezer bags.

In the words of Homer Simpson “I haven’t learnt a thing”.

SpinRite from GRC is another last ditch tool worth using (possibly before the freezer) – this has recovered stuff from disks I’d mentally consigned to the dustbin and comforted the tearful owners before now. Cost me about £40 for a licence, bargain if it saves you once.

Is that actually any good?

Mostly, I find Steve Gibson to be a self-aggrandising prig and drama queen. I’d approach his utils with one of scepticism.

Isn’t it to do with the bearings?