Hard Drive visits Freezer - Part 1

Yep, that's my laptop hard drive spending the night next to ice cream in freezer (pic - without baggie). Read on Lifehacker that dead hard drives sometimes come back to life after being frozen, so decided to try. Very optimistic it would work ... it didn't. Dell's diagnostics indicate "irreparable", so now thawed hard drive is off to third-party data restoration center to try to retrieve files that weren't backed up.

I'm not in any particular hurry for files, but learned fastest (really expensive) option from "recovery center" is courier pick up (in Maine - for Boston) and work 24/7 on "emergency" basis until retrieve. Slowest service option (my choice) is 3-5 days. Fed ex overnight label by email in 3-5 minutes. Interesting legal form too. Stay tuned for Part 2 in few days - find out how long it takes to get next communication, whether or not data recovery worked - and what I agreed to in that legal doc.

And yes, I've learned a lesson ... first time I've lost more than 2 or 3 files in 25 years ... So if you haven't backed-up data in past day (or longer), do yourself a big favor and do it now.