It was a method to unstick stuck drive platters, but hasn’t worked since HDD manufacturing processes changed a few years ago. May work for certain drives manufacted pre-Covid, but that’s it:
Comment on Do you think my HDD is broken?
RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago what is the freezer trick exactly?
comador@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago 0x0@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Nothing in that link explains why i wouldnt work anymore
PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Pop the disk into the freezer for a few hours (or a day). It has to be long enough for the components to all get cold. This shrinks the materials and could possibly unstick heads from the platters. I think it has worked two out of four attempts for me. This is a method to get access to the data of which you should extract as soon as possible.
Be cautious of condensation on the cold disk as it could potentially arc circuitry.