Topic: Repaired my laptop with a freezer

This is a wonderful last resort manouver - keep it in your book, for it just saved my life
and may save yours too sometime.
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Electric problem yesterday, my workstation power unit dies, and my laptop's HD starts making weird noises.
Then, as I am browsing, BSOD!!!!

No backup yet for february - shivers.
Restart, and the "registry is corrupt". After some diagnosis, a whole chunk of my HD is out of reach, and none of my systems will boot.
...I turn green. purple. And all sorts of colors.

...Tonight, I try the famous - "inexplicable" - magic trick given to me by another consultant & physician - the guy who invented the concept
of "optical computer networks based on pringles boxes". I try all my tricks for three hours. No luck : the laptop seems dead, all the while I am
trying to stay connected through my ipod. A nightmare.


I pull the laptop's hd off, wrap it in (antistatic matter - paper), and put it in the freezer.
Doing this long enough partly repairs physical damage to the structure of a HD.
HD back in, I boot from the Windows setup CD, start the recovery console, and launch a full check disk


And I am happily posting from a true keyboard right now, all my stuff backed up.

perhaps you know that already but the effect may not be permanent at all ...

Ditto Arthurio, but at least it made for a cheap data recovery - everything is now on my usb secondary drive
and on the web storage area.

+ I repaired my desktop as well, using the power unit from a... PII computer Got lucky, voltage was the same.

Yup, the old freezer trick has spared many a pickle.... but it really is only an emergency, 'get the data while it's cold' measure. Anybody who uses this trick, backup your files/system as quickly as possible, and replace that hard-drive! It isn't a repair at all - it's like dumping a capful of lighter fluid in old engine's carbs; it'll get things started for the timebeing, but it's only prolonging the inevitable.

I'm glad it worked for you - I've used the same trick myself, a few times.

This is a common discussion, by the way:

Topic awaiting preservation: My HD didn't survive my vacation...
Topic awaiting preservation: Advice needed! My hard drive is failing!
Topic: need to access crashed hard drive

My own theory was that the freezing/cooling helps to (temporarily) overcome mechanical/sticking problems, but brucew suggested that it (temporarily) overcomes electronic/overheat issues. Either way - it is entirely temporary, as proven by experience.

Wasn't aware the trick was widely spread - good. In general : electricity is best conducted in cold conditions, so... no clue as to why
exactly, but it works.

To confirm what WH said. As I understand the problem is usually in overheating of the electronic components eg parts of the controller board. Possibly some of the contacts get detached when expanding too much and temporarily connect again when contracting.

I've heard of this trick being used on other electronics devices as well such as gpus.