Deep freezer is only 5 years old. Running perfect until early today. Had a power surge (faulty neutral at the power meter). End result was burned out appliances - including deep freezer. Deep freezer is on it's own circuit. When electrician flipped power inside the house, he heard a loud pop and it threw the circuit breaker. Since then, you can't plug in deep freezer without it tripping the breaker immediately. No noise, no lights, just "pop".

My question is could this be ONLY the run capacitor.......or could the whole compressor assembly is bad. Hate to trash an otherwise good deep freezer if it could be fixed with a $30 run capacitor. Or could the whole compressor assembly be trashed??? Is the run capacitor a diy replaceable part or will the whole system need to evac'ed to remove it?

Here is a good link on how to check various components.
Appliance Repair Guide: How To Fix a Refrigerator - ACME HOW TO.com

Note: That if the compressor checks out OK it does not totally remove it as the cause. But if it fails then you know it is toast. Windings shorted to each other or the case are the most probable cause of tripping the breaker.

The capacitor test is also like the compressor test you can use it to see if the capacitor is toast but it does not rule it out if it passes. The reason is that you are testing it using the low voltage from the meter and they can fail when operating voltages are applied to them.