Is there any way to revive a dead laptop battery?

I have a three year old Dell Latitude laptop that I've been using pretty intensively. After a year or so, the battery dropped dead - if I plug the laptop out it goes into hibernation in a matter of seconds. Probably this was because I kept working on it plugged in all the time, but back then I didn't realize what effect it could have (this was my first laptop).

Currently, I'm searching for a new laptop and I was thinking if there was something I could do to get the battery back working. I've found several links (sorry, I'm a new user so I can't post them) about freezing Li-ion batteries, but the opinions seem to mixed - some say that it worked for them, some not.

If you've tried the freezing technique please let me know if it works. Or if you know another way to make a dead battery work again, please share here. I've already seen this thread, but I'm not very handy with soldering. If it's the only alternative I'll try it, but there's a big chance that I'll screw it up.

Thanks!