When my hard drive died a few months ago the data salvage tech who helped retrieve some of the files told me that he had to resort to freezing the hard drive in order to get a few extra files from it. (Sadly for me, he could not retrieve about 40% of my files and I lost a lot of photos and music. I back up my files regularly now!)

I've lost a hard drive about a year ago with lots of videos and documents. I wish I knew it that time.

Funny, i was just recommending this method to Eric W at clipmarks after one of his HD's crashed.

I tried this for a friend recently and it *almost* worked. The disk wouldn't spin up. No little clicking or whirring sounds at all after power on.

I froze it over night

The next day I plugged it in again, and it made the right sounds! Just for a moment. Then dead again.

Sigh...