The old freezing a stuck hard drive trick still works

Macintouch: Reviving Macintosh Computers

This is an old tip. I'd forgotten about it. It still works:

Reviving Failing Drive

MacInTouch Reader

I recently managed to recover data from a failing hard disk using a rather unusual technique, which has come to be known as "the freezer trick".

The symptoms exhibited by my failing 80GB IBM DeskStar seemed quite odd when you think of hard disk failures. Usually failures are sudden and complete. However, in my case, a week ago I noticed strange pauses in operation (most obvious in iTunes playback, as my music was stored on that drive) that lasted up to 30 seconds at a time. I suspected maybe some background operation such as Spotlight had taken excessive CPU and/or disk time, but Activity Monitor didn't provide any clues. I then checked Console, and eventually I started seeing I/O errors referring to my IBM drive. At this point, I suspected a directory error and repaired the disk using Disk Utility. The intermittent access problems persisted but running Disk Utility actually turned up nothing wrong with the drive. Furthermore, SMART status always showed "Verified". I started backing up data from the drive.

Still, I had intermittent problems accessing the drive. Eventually, the disk would disappear and become unmounted. Disk Utility would actually not list the drive anymore. This also resulted in the Slave drive on the same bus disappearing at the same time. The only remedy was to restart, and it would operate normally for a while again. I then thought perhaps something was wrong with the Ultra ATA bus. So, I tested the IBM drive on the IDE/ATA bus by swapping it with the DVD-ROM drive on that bus. The slave disk worked fine, but the IBM drive still showed problems. I therefore suspected the IBM drive as having the problem.

At this point, following another failure, it would no longer spin up on restart. I left the drive overnight and figured it would be OK the next day. It wasn't. At this point the drive was inoperable, but I still needed to back up some of its data. Time for last resorts.

I remembered the recent posting of a tip on MacInTouch about whacking the drive with a wooden mallet or screwdriver handle. I tried this, and it didn't work. I suspected "sticktion" as the drive appeared to make noises, but wouldn't spin up. I then searched the Internet for ways to revive an IBM DeskStar (aka "DeathStar" on many forums). I soon came across mentions of "the freezer trick", which was actually also mentioned on MacInTouch as well. Several people reported limited success in reviving "stuck" disks (from IBM and others) by using this method.

Essentially, in "sticktion" cases, the mechanical parts seize up, and a couple of methods may work to free them again (if only temporarily). "The freezer trick" is to put the drive in a sealed ziploc bag or wrap it in plastic food wrap, and put that in your freezer for a couple of hours. (I also put that inside a plastic case so that it wouldn't stick to the freezer.) This causes the mechanical parts to contract, hopefully freeing whatever is stuck. To my astonishment, it actually worked! I was able to backup all of the remaining data from the drive. The key is to keep the drive spinning. Once it spun down or went to sleep, it would not spin up again. I re-froze the drive for an hour and it worked again on reconnection. Obviously, people should only try this method as a last resort, and only in "sticktion" cases.

Additionally, I remember from a very long time ago (maybe 15 years) I had ongoing sticktion problems with an external SCSI hard drive that could be remedied by placing it in front of a dehumidifier for a couple of hours.

Cheap wireless USB adapter: CompUSA

Macintouch Wireless Networking (Part 31): "I purchased the Hawking Wireless-g USB 2 adapter last week from CompUSA, $9.99 after rebates. I was intended to use it in a desktop PC. In PC, it was identified as a Zydas ZD1211 device. I went to the Zydas website and found that they have drivers for Mac OSX 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4. So I downloaded it and installed in my eMac, it works on my eMac with Mac OSX 10.4.."

A diverse set of Airport antennas and range extenders

QuickerTek :: Products

Amazon.com: Electronics: WatchGuard Firebox X Edge X5 - firewall

Amazon.com: Electronics: WatchGuard Firebox X Edge X5 - firewall ( WG40005 )

Macintouch readers like this product:

Watchguard Firebox Edge X5 VPN/Firewall - 10 x - VPN/FirewallThis easy-to-deploy, model-upgradeable, VPN endpoint and firewall security appliance was especially designed for telecommuters with limited networking experience, and offers best-in-class performance, work/home network separation, and intuitive remote management for network administrators in the central office. Firebox X5 is the all-in-one firewall/VPN appliance that will handle all of your telecommuters security needs now and in the future. Small- to mid-sized businesses already protecting their central office networks with Firebox X5, can now extend that commercial-grade security to their remote and telecommuting employees with Firebox X5...

A sheet feed SOHO document scanner for OS X?

Amazon.com: Electronics: Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX Sheet-Fed Scanner with Automatic Document Feeder

Document scanning w/ OS X has been difficult. This Macintouch poster suggests a solution:

It would appear that MindWrap's ScanTango would be an excellent solution. It claims to work with Fujitsu Scanners. On the basis of their claims and an earlier posting here by Randy Singer, I am purchasing a Fujitsu fi-5110EOX [$432.99 @ Amazon] from MacConnection and giving it a try.

Black levels - the achilles heel of digital video

DV and DVD Black Levels Part 2

Computer displays are cursed by fights over "gamma". Digital photography suffers from battles and confusion about embedded color profiles. Not surprisingly, digital video has its own achilles heel:

/// The analog inputs of North America NTSC TV's, VCR's and other equipment are designed for a black level of '7.5 IRE' (the 7.5 number is a reference point on a measurement scale for analog video). You may also hear this 7.5 IRE standard referred to as 'pedestal' or 'setup.' If you're in the rest of the world, using PAL equipment or the Japan NTSC standard, your equipment is designed for 0 IRE analog. We do it differently in North America because back in the Jurassic Age of television this 7.5 IRE black level was needed to make TV's work correctly. The rest of the world came up with a less-complicated way to do it.

The problem for DV users in North America is that DV 25 video equipment (named for the 25 megabit per second data rate of this popular video format), whether it is PAL or NTSC has an analog output of 0 IRE. In other words, your DV equipment uses the Japan NTSC standard and if you plug your DV gear into a video monitor or TV designed and calibrated for the North America NTSC system, the black level or levels you see will be wrong.

Image Capture + Rotate per EXIF + iPhoto 5 = Nasty problems

Apple - Discussions - Image Capture + Rotate per EXIF + iPhoto = Bad

From a post of mine on Apple's support forum:

My image intake workflow starts by importing with Graphic Converter, then renaming withi 'A Better Finder Rename' (rename images to a "date_description_image#"), then review and major edits in GC then import into iPhoto.

A recent release bug in GC, however, forced me to use OS X Image Capture. That's bad news with EXIF auto-rotate and iPhoto.

Image Capture has had a bug for several years -- with my Canon camera it duplicates the EXIF orientation tag when it auto-rotates on import. This confuses iPhoto 5.04 -- iPhoto re-rotates portrait images a second time (interestingly the thumb nail is upright) and so the image ends up rotated 180 degrees. I was sure this bug must have been fixed in Tiger. Wrong.

The malrotation is bad enough, but if one includes these double-tagged images in a batch that's mailed, Mail.App hangs until it finally times out with an AppleEvent error ("mail got an error: apple event timed out". It takes about 15 minutes to time out, during which time one watches the spinning pizza of death.

I fixed my Image Capture mangled images using a Graphic Converter feature that was added a while back on my request. This feature fixes corrupt orientating tags and resets them to the current orientation (so first get the image oriented correctly, then run this).

First I told iPhoto to restore all image to original. Then I did something quite risky (I have backups), I quite iPhoto, deleted the Library root .jpg cache files, then used GC to navigate the images I'd imported in their iPhoto directories. I located all the mangled images, reoriented them, and ran the EXIF repair utility. I then fired up iPhoto. (I tried removing the thumbnails, but iPhoto doesn't regenerate these as one would expect, instead it hangs and eventually shows blank images -- I think this is a cause of the broken thumbnails bug -- iPhoto should just regenerate them.) In cases where the thumbnails were mal-oriented I forced a thumbnail rebuild by editing the image then restoring to Original.

After this fix I was able to mail the images without any trouble.

iPhoto is in such bad shape I wonder if Apple shouldn't do rewrite from the ground up -- maybe an app that would only run in Tiger.