hard disk failure - now what?

[Jerry McAllister]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 10:23:47PM +0200, Roland Smith wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 12:13:48PM -0700, George Davidovich wrote:
> <snip>
> > > If the drive is that bad, it is doubtfull if dd or ddrescue will be
> > > able to get a good copy.
> > 
> > Probably true.  I hesitate to suggest this, but sticking the drive in a
> > freezer (preferrably in a ziplock bag) for a few hours or overnight
> > might help.  Stories from people claiming "I swear it works!" go back
> > years.  
> 
> Interesting.
> 
> > To the exent it does work, it might give Kelly enough time to attempt
> > recovery.  If more time is required, he can try and find a creative
> > workaround for the 5 meter max length for USB cables.  Also,
> > experimenting with dry ice or acetone baths might prove to be
> > interesting, or at least educational. ;-)
> 
> 
> I remember this special non-condictive 3M fluid that can be used to cool
> electronics. A group of hackers dunked a complete PC minus the case and power
> supply in this stuff. The fluid itself was cooled with liquid nitrogen. They
> everclocked it something wicked. Not very practical though. :-)

A number of supercomputers from Cray and Control Data and maybe some
other places used this sort of thing on some experimental systems.  I
don't know if any ever were put in to commercial production.  They submerged
who boards in to it and then supercooled the fluid.   I don't remember
the chemical names.  

The fluid was a relative of Freon and held sufficient levels of oxygen 
to support lung breathers.  They used to have a tank with a live mouse 
submerged in it bouncing around and seeming to have no trouble not 
choking or drowning.  A variation of it was also researched as a blood 
substitute for some special medical needs.  I don't know how far that 
went.    I know it is not all fantasy because I saw the live mouse.   
I didn't try the blood substitute.

////jerry


> 
> Roland
> -- 
> R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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