[specialist]

While doing desktop support, one of my Mac user's hard drive was failing, wouldn't spin up at boot. So you had to help spin it up. One trick was to give the HDD housing a rotation jerk the moment you turn on power. Another was to use a pencil eraser to spin the exposed spindle, also during power on.

Good times.

[yardie]

I've talked to a few recovery experts. They told me taking the cover off destroys the drive. Apparantly the head has some tracks embedded in the cover. If it's not removed in a certain way you can rip the entire thing out.

[IbJacked]

I don't think he removed the cover. The spindle was was exposed, not the platters.