My buddy told me to just 'tap the side' of a stubborn old hard drive to get it spinning again, and honestly, it actually worked for about 3 minutes before it made a sound like a coffee grinder full of gravel and died forever.

Ngl, I was so shocked it spun up at all that I almost called him a genius, but now I need to know if anyone else has a better trick for data recovery from a truly ancient 40GB Maxtor drive before I tell the client it's toast.

2 comments

2 Comments

uma_mitchell832d ago

So the "percussive maintenance" actually got it going for a second, that's wild lol. Did you try freezing it? I've heard of people sealing a dead drive in a zip bag, putting it in the freezer for a few hours, then hooking it up quick to pull data. No idea if it works on something that old though.

finleyfox2d ago

Freezing drives is a last-ditch trick for newer hardware with stuck parts. That old drive probably has different failure points, like degraded coatings. You might just kill it for good with the moisture.