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Update: my old shop lead in Joliet swore by the freezer trick for dead drives, and I owe him an apology
Back when I worked at a repair shop off Cass Street in Joliet, my lead, a guy named Dale who had been doing board level work since the 90s, kept telling me to toss clicking hard drives in the freezer for about 20 minutes before pulling data. I laughed at him for two years and called it old timer nonsense, mostly because it sounded like something out of a bad forum post. Then last week a customer brought in a laptop with 14 years of family photos on a drive that would spin up and immediately click. We had nothing to lose and the quote for recovery was around $900, so I wrapped it in two ziplock bags with a paper towel and stuck it in the shop fridge freezer for 18 minutes. It booted long enough to pull 47 gigs off it before it died again, and I sat there with my mouth open. Dale retired to Peoria a while back but I texted him a photo of the drive and he just replied with a smiley face. Now I'm wondering what other tricks I dismissed too fast. Anybody here got one of those old school moves they still use?
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