Strangely, since this thread was started, my father's hard drive has gone belly up with a dead motor.
It got me to thinking... drive manufactures could make this MUCH easier for us by simply making a couple of changes.
Here's what I envision... under the center of the spindle, on the outside of the case, would be a metallic sticker with WARRENTY VOID IF REMOVED printed on it. Under this sticker would be a small socket that would simply be a very short extension of the spindle. Drive manufacturers could market "emergency spinners", which would basically be a small motor on a base that would attach to the underside of a drive, with a special head that would fit in the (now exposed) socket and spin it at the correct speed. They could sell these for $50 even though it would only cost them $5 to make.
This would be on more way for the drive manufacturers to make money (though not a huge amount) and to also gain good will from customers... imagine that your drive (in or out of warranty) has a motor that dies. If the data isn't that important to you, you can just ship it back for a replacement (if it's under warranty). But if the data IS important to you, they've now given you a way to spin the drive up to get your data off. If you had sent it to a data recovery firm, they would have voided the warranty themselves, so you're no worse off... except that even with the cost of the spinner AND a new drive, you've saved hundreds of dollars AND now own a spinner in case it ever happens again to you or anyone else you know.
MAN.... this is a GREAT and simple idea! Looking back over the last 20 years, there are LOTS of times this would have saved me all sorts of trouble! Too bad they'll probably never do it.
Joe