Advice for attempting to get data from a hard disk by putting it in a freezer

First of all. If your data is really important to you consult with a professional datarecovery company and do NOT attempt to start your drive as this will only make matters worse (small particles might fly around inside the drive and crash into the platter and cause more particles to break loose... etc etc)

The freezer trick might work but if you attempt to do this you need to seal your disk in a plastic bag to prevent condensation. Also when done with the freezer thing you should start your disk in a cold room (also to prevent condensation). You can also try to change the orientation of the disk and see if that helps. As a last resort you can even try dropping your disk from a few centimeters height.

Once you get your disk running you have several possible solutions A: Forget about your RAID and try to make a image of the disk. If lucky the disk can be read in one operation and the read/write head does not have to dance around the disk too much. Restore the image on a healthy disk and use that get your (striped) raid running again.

B: Start your raid and only copy the most important files first to a fresh disk as soon as possible.

There are several good reasons to avoid both methods and rather trust your data to professionals. Good luck!

I have had success with the drive-in-the-freezer trick the one time I tried it back in the mid '90s.

This trick only works with physical problems in the drive. In my case, the bearing on the motor that spins the platters had seized up, which was pretty apparent since the usual hum and vibrations were not there when the drive was powered up.

It is essential to put the drive in a seal-able bag first to prevent condensation on and in the drive. Leave it there for a while, maybe try 30 minutes, then move it immediately into the computer and power it up.

In my case, the bearing and motor shaft shrank just enough from the cold to free the bearing, which allowed the motor to spin the platters. The drive continued to operate for as long as I left it running, giving me plenty of time to copy all of the data. Once the drive was powered down and left to sit though, it wouldn't start again without a trip through the freezer, but I was done with it anyway and it went in the garbage instead.