Bingowings said:
I thought the freezer trick was a myth (like the urethra trick only less uncomfortable).
Nah, it works, as I understand it, because freezing makes the hard-disk go back to it's original form and strengthens it so if it has become bent or warped, it will fix it for as long as it's frozen. But as it thaws, the hard disk becomes less stable, this can mean you have to freeze it a couple of times to rescue all the data.
As I said earlier, two drives I had been unable to do anything with, I managed to retrieve all the data after freezing, one was only small 60 GB so managed to get all the data off in one, the other took three goes.
What's the urethra trick? Can't say I've heard of that.
On a related note, I have to say get a hybrid hard-drive (it has a small solid state cached drive, and a much larger standard drive). I've found them to both be far more reliable (than both solid state and normal), quieter and use less power than standard drives; none of the hybrid's I've installed have I yet to see fail.