Just got a 7200.11 last night from a "computer repair technician." He had just removed it from the freezer and it was covered in condensation. I'm going to assume the inside is equally wet.

What's the best way to dry it out? Let it sit (how long?) or open it up? I don't especially want to open it, but will take it to the cleanroom if I have to.

The tech also said he smacked the drive to see if that would resolve the problem and then put it in a plastic bag to submerge it in cool water . Surprisingly, none of those recovery techniques worked.

After all this, he asked me for a job. Now, where did I put those employment applications?

Maybe he can find an employement at a data destruction facility.

So neither the "percussive maintenance" neither the "freezer" maintenance worked ? He was simply unlucky : according to "some people" both technique do wonders....

Maybe he forgot to put the drive into the oven after the freezer to complete the operation.

I think you should open in clean environment, but as for process for drying out I guess there are several and opinions will likely be different.

Nothing is for free and without research, take a functional donor and replicate the same conditions and work out a method for yourself that is acceptable.

Maybe there is no internal damage - just hope water didn't leak inside. Platter inspection is necessary.

Cleaning platters is no trade secret mon!

http://www.ehow.com/how_5030849_clean-h ... atter.html

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media-cleaning-t10031.html ?

wtf? tampon?

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LOL @ the ehow article. Wow who knew it was so easy? Awesome how any old philips screwdriver will open up the torx screws
They should possibly link to another ehow article on how to realign the WD drives after the poor sucker has wedged it open and squashed it back together with his screwdriver. Great comedy.

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The article on Ehow must have been written by someone at HDD manufacturing, marketing dept. to sell more drives

Can't believe "if the drive is sluggish open it and spray air" ... if it was so simple, why not use WD-40 ? It will run better, quieter and maybe you will get rid of bad sectors just in case some part of the magnetic layer got "oxidized"

And people read that crap- do it and then poo their pants!

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Oh don't worry... it's plenty of advice about removing "stains" from clothing

This thread went from how to dry out a drive to removing poop stains from clothing...

I wonder if the tech is going to pay for his freezer recovery or if he's gonna pass that cost on to his customer.

Relating to the other thread I posted.
I actually asked my girlfriend for a tampon - opened a 11gb hitachi. ate a pack of crisps. put my fingers on the platter and cleaned it using 99.5% alcohol with the tampon! Polished the platter and closed it. It intiiliased- tested the SA - OK; surface scan ok; and after n-teen minutes it just went bonkers. I opened it and there was a ring in the middle- some thing got stuck in the head. Piece of crisp? any way... if i REALLY did it thoroughly i might of gotten away with it...
Who knows what the long term result are any way...
tampon.. Maybe i should publish my findings at ehow.com

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This one is very good. Nice touch. After a flood here on the the islands just a few weeks back and I was hit hard from it. My HDD and a lot of others came here soaked in mud and crap. I had one person who did a washing machine on his. He stuck his HDD under water and used a fan and hair dryer to dry it out again. When you see the inside of this drive after his washing machine efforts the mud inside of it has gone to slush and then now dried and cacked on the platters and heads. Poor guy even ran this drive afer he did his washing machine on it and said it was working fine. This one is hard to believe seeing the condition of the drive once it was opened. He now has a drive that is full of dried mud and tons of scratches and platter damage due to his restore effots on this one

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Hopefully he gave it an extra rinse and spin cycle after the wash cycle? That must have been what "brought it back to life"
Maybe a tumble dryer is the next weapon in the DR arsenal, line one up with your PC3000 and Deepspar imager

Shame some people really do more harm than good...misinformation is a bad and often expensive thing.

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Here is a good lead

dirty-platter-teflon-depositing-how-clean-t17340.html#p116228

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