[cctalk] Re: RD54 Maxtor XT-2190 w/one long meep

Another trick was for drives whose read/write amplifiers (which were typically situated within the sealed chamber, thus not replaceable except in a clean-room facility) had become flakey, and the drive would start getting lots of I/O errors. I would take the drive and put it inside a large ziplock bag, along with a bag of desiccant(this part is really important to suck up moisture in the air in the bag), and a small battery-powered digital thermometer. I'd put it in the freezer until the drive had reached roughly 42F, and then take it out, and immediately hook it up to an archival system and power it up while it was still cold. This would allow me to get the data off without I/O errors as long as I could get what I needed before the drive warmed up enough that the weakness in the amplifiers again became a problem. I found out about this trick somewhere on USENET many moons ago. It worked for me a number of times.