[luau] hard drive recovery practices

[Warren Togami]

Vince Hoang wrote:
> Does anyone have any [good] experiences of data recovery from
> a hard drive after a dd or fsck fails? I have never been in
> a situation where it was economically feasible to employ the
> services of hard drive surgeons in clean rooms.
> 
> -Vince

I heard somewhere that when hard drives fail to spin up, if you put it 
in a freezer for a few hours, take it out and keep it away from air (so 
condensation wont form on it), the temperature expansion/contraction is 
sometimes enough to "unstick" it to spin up one more time.  If you 
manage to get it spinning, quickly copy as much data as possible off of 
the drive before it dies permanently.  Some other guy suggested the same 
thing but putting the hard drive into an oven, and using it after it 
cooled down.

I think this was on Kuro5hin or Slashdot a few months ago.  Use at your 
own risk.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com