Failing Hard Drive

Last Updated on Friday, 03 July 2009 20:02 Sunday, 21 January 2007 15:27

Hard drives die. It's a sad fact of life. But on some occasions, your hard drive will give you a clue that death is eminent. A metal clicking noise is a sure sign that your hard drive is giving up the ghost. If you move quickly, you have a chance to back up your data before the drive completely dies.

First, remove the drive from its enclosure. Internal hard drives need to be removed from the computer, external hard drives need to be removed from their case.

Place the drive in a Ziploc freezer bag and squeeze out as much of the air as possible.

Put the drive, in its plastic bag, into the freezer and leave it there for at least 4 hours. If you can leave the drive in the freezer overnight, this will improve your chances for success.

Before removing the drive from the freezer, have a back-up hard drive ready for data transfer. You will not have time to burn CDs or DVDs. Have a high-speed data source ready to go.

After freezing the drive for as long as possible, remove it from the freezer, remove it from the plastic bag and plug it back into its case. You want to keep the drive cold for as long as possible so don't bother shutting the computer's case or the external enclosure if possible.

Start the computer or external drive and begin copying the critical data off the drive.