On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:56:54 -0700
"Digital Paul" wrote:

My dilemma is that if I open the drive with the hope that
I can free the disk to make it rotate once again just to
retrieve the picture folder, then Western Digital will void
the warranty. This won=92t matter if I succeed
recovering my pictures, but if not?

Are you sure it's not working because the drive isn't spinning?=20
A Trick we use sometimes to try and free a 'stuck' drive, is to
hold it vertically, and give it a few flicks with your wrist.=20
Hard to explain in text, but it's worked for me before.

Do I have a chance to make the drive spin, at least
for a while if I remove the cover?

Probably not, and you have a very large change of screwing it
even further. Harddrives DO NOT like even the littlest bit of
dust. From my limited understanding, The heads of the drive
float just a couple of microns above the drive platter. At a
glance, it looks like they are touching it. A Human hair is
about 20 microns in diameter, or about 10 times the distance
that the head is off the platter. Little bits of dust on there
are not going to get along.

Does anyone know if there is a less expensive service
to retrieve my data, even if doing so I loose the
WD warranty?

I Don't know, but I do know a friend who lost a heap of wedding
photos, and sent them to a third-party recovery service, and
paid about $1500 Australian. It's not a cheap service.

-Chris D