# recovering from hdd fail



## narcolepsy (Aug 17, 2009)

hi, i recently had 2x hdds fail in my home server box. of course these were not backed up due to depletion of common sense. I was wondering the best way to recover the data. (I believe the disks overheated). I was thinking of making a new bsd box and racing the data over before it overheats again?

Any info/stories of past heroism recovering data appreciated.

M


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## SeanC (Aug 17, 2009)

Placing the HDD in the freezer overnight (in a plastic bag to avoid too much moisture) should allow you to fire up the dive one more time (worked for me _once_). If you are lucky you might get it to work for ~10 minutes.


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## graudeejs (Aug 17, 2009)

SeanC said:
			
		

> Placing the HDD in the freezer overnight (in a plastic bag to avoid too much moisture) should allow you to fire up the dive one more time (worked for me _once_). If you are lucky you might get it to work for ~10 minutes.



Now that was funny..... lol


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## SeanC (Aug 17, 2009)

You can't make this stuff up! Freezing it is supposed to release locked-up platters. The other suggestion is to hit it with a hammer.

I think I will back up my data this morning...


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## Beastie (Aug 17, 2009)

I've once heard about this _unorthodox_ method. I didn't think it would work though. I just thought it was one more urban legend.

Anyway, there's always a first time, when you say: "#$%#$%^! I wish I had a #&%^##* backup!", and then more of "^&*#$%#%@#&", and finally you're converted. From now on, you always make backups... but you don't ever really trust them 100% because in the process of learning your lesson the hard way you became paranoid.


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## Voltar (Aug 17, 2009)

SeanC said:
			
		

> Placing the HDD in the freezer overnight (in a plastic bag to avoid too much moisture) should allow you to fire up the dive one more time (worked for me _once_). If you are lucky you might get it to work for ~10 minutes.



+1

It really does work. You have to be ready to copy your data off the drive right away as it doesn't last long, and you may only have one shot. 

If you run into bad sectors and whatnot, you may try dd_rescue + dd_rhelp, I've had luck with those in the past.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Aug 17, 2009)

I recovered most of the files off of an 80G drive
with the freezer trick.
1... wrap in paper towell, secure with rubber band.
2... freezer 40 minutes.
3... install to ide channel2 and/or slave
4... mount to /mnt
5... data copy off 10 minutes.
6... unmount, return to freezer...
(only parts of /usr remained lost)


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## narcolepsy (Aug 18, 2009)

cheers for the ideas guys, I'd read about the freezer trick on slashdot ages ago and prayed i'd never need to use it, but sadly it seems like it might have to do. I've just bought 2 new disks to try and hoover the data from (unfortunately the old ones were both 500gb) which by my calcs at ~80MB/s (pata) will take just under two hours  not quite within the 5 minute window you mentioned!

hey ho.

but looking forward, what suggestions do you have for backup - rsync on two/three machines etc? its just a home network with music/photos i care about.


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