The old wives tales says that, when your hard drive might be chugging it's last death, clicking away its final moments, but there's a chance you can save your data by freezing whatever parts are loosening up or losing contact together. You see, your hard drive contains a lot of moving parts. After spinning for so long, it's only natural things can vibrate and get loose. Metal also expands as it gets hotter. Freezing the metal might just force everything back together again.

It sounds so ridiculous, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to prove that it can work, provided it's a hardware problem and not a software problem.

Although actually freezing it can only save the hard drive for only a few minutes. I believe that it isn't a foolproof way to save information.

Get a backup external hard drive?

I do believe that is the first time I have ever heard that, but I am interested to hear of anyone has tried it to see if it works. But I somehow doubt it though, even if the reasoning has some logic to it.

I know several friends who have used this trick to save a drive in the past... Now with backups and multiple drives a common feature, I don't hear of it very often but assume that it may still work.