Can I "unfreeze" an external HDD after freezing it?

[Dcismylove]

Hi!

I heard the clicks of death and read online that I can use the freezing method. Naively I did that. Pop my hard disk into my freezer. Is there anyway I can undo it? How to remove the water condensation after I remove it from the freezer?

I know I am stupid and didn't think much, coz was desperate. Please help, anyone?

 

[RealBeast]

Fortunately you have determined that not everything you read on the Internet is true.

Thaw the drive at room temperature and then let is sit in a dry warm area for a substantial period of time before powering it up to allow all of the water to evaporate before attempting to use it.

There is nothing that you can do to save a drive where the drive heads are slamming about making the click of death sound.

If the drive is not yet dead you can attempt to recover some data off of it, but if you cannot access it you will have to use your backup of the data. If you have no backup, the value of the data dictates whether you will spend hundreds of dollars having it recovered by a clean room lab like Seagate Recovery Services.

 

[Dcismylove]

Fortunately you have determined that not everything you read on the Internet is true.

Thaw the drive at room temperature and then let is sit in a dry warm area for a substantial period of time before powering it up to allow all of the water to evaporate before attempting to use it.

There is nothing that you can do to save a drive where the drive heads are slamming about making the click of death sound.

If the drive is not yet dead you can attempt to recover some data off of it, but if you cannot access it you will have to use your backup of the data. If you have no backup, the value of the data dictates whether you will spend hundreds of dollars having it recovered by a clean room lab like Seagate Recovery Services.

Is that anything required to thaw the drive at room temperature? Say use kitchen towel to wrap or anything like that?

Also, how do I determine if the drive is dead or not?

 

[RealBeast]

Nope, just let it sit. Best to set it on something to soak up excess water at first, but the big thing is to give it days to dry out in a dry warm location so that all water will be gone.

If it was dead before, it is still dead. If not, you will find out when you attach it to a computer some days from now. Just make sure that it has plenty of time to dry out, you might even gently blow a hair dryer on low into the vents after it sits a few days, then let it sit another day.