> > I had a client who recovered data from an overheating drive by putting
> > it in a freezer for a while -- pulled it out, plugged it in, booted
> > up, did a quick backup, replaced the drive. Wouldn't have been my
> > first guess...but it worked.

I had just the opposite a number of years ago: an early-model 3.5" IDE
Maxtor. It worked fine when hot, but would do the spinup - spindown -
stop routine if allowed to cool down. The BIOS didn't retry, so after
one cycle it would it stay spun down until hard reset. The cure was to
let the box cook for an hour or so, then hit reset, and all would be
well until the next power outage.

The machine was mostly used as an Xterminal and build system, so the
only data at risk was the OS itself. I got another couple years' use
out of it -- it lasted as long as the rest of the machine.

> Years ago, there was a quality control problems with some Seagate drives,
> related to having too much oil added to the bearing when they were built.
> Over time the oil would spread out onto the platter surface, when the
> drive was turned off the head(s) would settle and get stuck in the oil.

Ditto with the Quantum ProDrive 105S, back when 105MB was neither small
nor inexpensive :)

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