Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Food for thought about freezers =)

October 28th, 2010, 11:21

Got a drive , front 4 percent returned aborts in DDI. The rest is flawless. Noticed the drive running a bit to hot. Some WDs are like that. Cooled it down nicely and lo and behold , front end aborts started coming through. Got a percent and it started aborting again. Now generally i am pro choice , but the client really wanted the rest of the data =))) Cooled it down again - got another percent. Why is that i wonder. From 4 percent onwards even when the drive was hot - no problem with DDIing it. But the front - only when its cold as BlackSTs heart ( joke m8 =) )

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 28th, 2010, 11:32

Some WD can operate better in heat also, if recording heads can be heated in excess of 70°C some cases will allow improved reading.

In my opinion changing temperature of media is simply avoiding the real cause. In this case you got data, so good job but in many other situations this will simply make the disk more unstable and potentially cause other problems or worsen the original condition.

Though you made success here, (and well done) I think in many other cases would make no difference or possibly make things worse.

From curiosity, what was WD? Was it from Tornado series?

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 28th, 2010, 11:36

Heya Hddguy. Its a Hulk. 1TB WD10EACS-32ZJB0.

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 28th, 2010, 12:13

I once had a really old Maxtor with bearing problems that liked being cold, but not too cold

Even back in my wild and crazy days of experimentation I never saw a drive that worked better at freezer temperatures

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 28th, 2010, 19:09

hddguy wrote:Some WD can operate better in heat also, if recording heads can be heated in excess of 70°C some cases will allow improved reading.

Is it possible that heating the head could significanty reduce its flying height, thus increasing the read signal amplitude? Would it be possible to override the drive's Thermal Flying Height Control for this purpose, without risking a head crash?

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 29th, 2010, 12:20

Requesting a bit of input from pros regarding this case. PCimage ? BlackST? Anyone else ? It just makes no sense to me....

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 29th, 2010, 12:24

What case? Your case? Hddguy's case?

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 29th, 2010, 13:41

fzabkar wrote:Would it be possible to override the drive's Thermal Flying Height Control for this purpose, without risking a head crash?

No, it is high risk because drive has no ability to cool down the HGA and it is only up to you how close to surface the head is going to go
Actually speaking from experience extreme heating usually ends up with media damage, so you have to know what you are doing and make everything fast and precise

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 29th, 2010, 13:56

I'll Pm .

Re: Food for thought about freezers =)

October 29th, 2010, 14:47

You have PM from me too :-)
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