Getting a bad hard drive to spin?

As many of you know, I'm not really in the computer business, but I do make a little money on the side fixing computers. I have a customer with a Quantum hard drive that (as near as I can tell) isn't spinning up at all. No vibration, no sound, no response. I have already replaced the drive and restored the system from the Quick Restore CDs (it's a Compaq), and everything is working beautifully.

Now I'm trying to recover her files from the old drive so she doesn't lose all her data, but I can't get the drive to spin up so I can get the files off. I've put it in my system where I know everything is good, but it isn't recognized at all. I've tried gently tapping it to try and knock loose whatever is keeping it from spinning, but no luck.

Does anybody have any ideas for how to get this drive to spin, short of sending it back to the manufacturer? I just don't want to have to give her bad news.

[EDIT] It's out of warranty, BTW.

toss er in the freezer for a while (and prep some ice bags for the copy) and then hook er up, you may have to give it a good thump or drop it from about 2 inches off the table to get the spin to start....

good luck!!

I had a hard drive that did the same thing, where I could not get the disk to work at all, and the freezer trick worked for me.

Someone had posted this a while back. It might help. http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=237313