off topic - disk crash

[C. Kukulies]

Today an important (no backup of course) 46 GB IBM Deskstar
IDE disk crashed. It has a FreeBSD 4.8 on it with important data and programs.
Yes, shame on me that I didn't care about doing backups on it but it
has happened.

I evend tend to expend the bucks to get it recovered but a little
prediagnosis I would not to be left untried.

The disk boots into FreeBSD but already at power on time the disk does
seek retries or some recalibration noise.

The question is what else can I do to recover the data.
Put it in the icebox? Turn the computer upside down?

Any ideas would be welcome.

I thought of getting a second identical disk to exchange electronics
only but since it partially functions it looks more like surface corruption,
doesn't it?

--
Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kukulies (at) rwth-aachen.de