[ale] OT: Migrating off dying HDD

[esoteric at 3times25.net (Geoffrey)]

Greg Freemyer wrote:

> One of the tricks of the trade is to put your drive in a freezer for
> long enough to get it really cold.  Then connect it to your "capture"
> computer and get a dd image as fast as you can:

My concern is the sudden changes in temperature certainly can't be good 
for the drive.  From room temperature, to freezer, back to room 
temperature I would expect would very likely generate condensation. 
Further, the drastic changes in the temperatures is not good either.

Thus, my previous suggestion of setting the drive on a towel on top of a 
freezer pack or a ziplock of ice. It will cool slower and you do the 
backup while it's still on the pack. I've got some flat freezer packs 
that will stay cold for 24 hours.  With this solution, the drive 
temperature is kept relatively constant while you attempt to pull the 
data off, since you're doing it while it's sitting on the ice pack.

Pulling it from the freezer and then doing it, you're fighting time and 
the device will heat up pretty quick if that is fact the original problem.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey