[TacticalCoder]

I confirm here that one day, about ten years ago, I managed to save a harddisk on which I had important data for which I had no backup (well, I had backups but I had lost/forgot the gpg key to decrypt them which in a way is even more stupid than not having backup at all: false sense of security).

You could hear the HDD "wanting" to start but failing. I searched the net like crazy because I really needed the data kinda badly: I even considered trying to find an identical, used (but working), HDD and swapping the controller.

Eventually I found a message (somewhere on Usenet I think) saying that some failing drive may start when cold enough... So I did put the HDD in the fridge. After the 2nd try I managed to boot it and to copy all my data and it's the last time that that drive booted!

So, as crazy as it sounds, the fridge/refrigerator trick was working in some cases... And I take it that the grill/heat thinggy may work in some cases too :)

[__david__]

It's called "stiction" [1] and it used to be a very common way for HDs to fail. I haven't seen it so much any more.

You could also hold the drive in your hand and rotate it in a jerking fashion to try to unstick it. I remember doing that successfully a few times.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives