I recently stumbled upon this useful Reddit thread that asked users, "What life hack seems to be fake, but it's a true lifesaver?" I know variations of this question are asked all the time, and some of the same tips appear time and time again. Well, this thread introduced me to some tips that actually surprised me! Here's what people shared:
1. "Put your hard drive in the freezer to get it to spin up one more time. I swear to god I thought it was BS until I was out of options and tried it. The damn thing came back on a few more times, and I got the data off of it that I needed."
"I'm not sure there is a better answer for this question. It is such a goofy solution that shouldn't realistically work. The number of times I've successfully extracted data from a dying drive using this technique is ridiculous. When a good friend of mine gave me this advice over the phone, I remember being genuinely annoyed that he wasn't offering any real guidance. He had 20+ years in IT at that point, and he was my go-to in times of crisis. I was absolutely gobsmacked when it worked. Over the years, I perfected the method by first freezing the drive in a Ziploc bag, then placing it (with all cables connected) into a cooler of ice and water. Occasionally I found lightly tapping on the top right corner of the drive with a hammer allowed me to get over that last hump of extraction."
2. "When you don't know what to gift someone, look through who they follow on Instagram, such as artists, bands, etc. to buy something from them!"
