My hard drive failed and i can not boot up my computer or even reinstall windows 7. Is there anyway to fix my hard drive? I've read somewhere that putting it in an anti-static bag and then in the freezer will help it be usable. So overall, is there anyway to continue using this hard drive or do i have to buy another one.
If you're like to freeze your Hard Drive and it is one that goes cheap...i guess you better buy a new one...
or
If you have Data to recover perhaps you could give a try.
2012 Q3 link clearance: Microsoft research edition - The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Cycles, Cells and Platters: An Empirical Analysis of Hardware Failures on a Million Consumer PCs - Microsoft Research
I had the good fortune of seeing an early version of this paper. The thing that jumped out at me was the hard drive failure information:
The probability of a failure in the first 5 days of uptime is 1 in 470.
Once you've had one failure, the probability of a second failure is 1 in 3.4.
Once you've had two failures, the probability of a third failure is 1 in 1.9.
Translation: That hard drive failure you experienced? It was no fluke. Once you experience your first hard drive failure, the odds of a second one increase by a factor of over 100.
What's more, that second failure is highly likely (86%) to occur within the next ten days, and almost certainly (99%) within the next thirty.
Conclusion: When you get a hard drive failure, replace the drive immediately.
Yup, buy a new drive, the freezer trick works only on a specific type of failure with the read/write heads and won't fix a bad circuit board.
You may be able to recover your data if you can connect the bad drive to another PC and copy it to some sort of media.
Yeah WA I have read somewhere recently that that way of dealing with it is possible but apparently you only have one shot at it so make sure you have everything set up ready to roll as soon as you take it out of the freezer.
It also said that it has to be well and truly frozen too not just in for half an hour then try I seem to remember it said preferably overnight. You will need a working machine to hook it up to of course and if you cannot hook it into a desktop board data socket (SATA) and power supply there are those gadgets (I prefer those) that provide power and a USB hook up for data. They are not expensive and are useful for a myriad of different uses.
Read MoreOf all the myths out there that ostensibly tell computer users how to recover their own data from a damaged hard drive, the most prevalent is probably the "freeze myth," which purports that a hard drive can be restored by putting it into a freezer for several hours and then rebooting it.
Hum thanks Gary it was a while ago I read that (about freezing) and I have t admit I thought at the time that doing that would make he bearings and stuff like any moving parts a bit stiff but took it on face value.
Sorry Non I meant to add that I did try a really wrecked drive out of a laptop without freezing and it was yep wrecked
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