I recently bought a 10TB WD Red Plus HDD, and while trying to remove it from a tricky hard drive bay in my ATX case, I accidentally broke the SATA port. I managed to superglue it back on, but the job isn't pretty and there's some glue near the pins. Although the HDD is currently functioning, I'm worried about the long-term safety of using it in my PC. Should I just use it as is, or would it be better to try to return or RMA it since I got it from Amazon?
4 Answers
If the drive works, there's no immediate danger, but I'd advise against trying to return it to Amazon since it's personally damaged. It's best to use it carefully and plan for a replacement instead of risking an uninformed customer buying a faulty drive.
Using a drive with a glued port can be risky, especially for valuable data. If it fails, you could lose everything stored on it. So, I'd recommend not using it for anything critical unless you have backups elsewhere. Returning it might feel shady since you caused the damage, and most warranties don't cover self-inflicted issues, so I wouldn't bank on an RMA working out either.
Honestly, it might be okay for now. I had a similar issue once with a SATA SSD and it worked for a couple of years without a hitch. Just remember, it's probably best to start thinking about getting a replacement soon, just in case things start to go south. You can check with WD support to see if they can help before looking at replacements.
If it works now, it's fine to use, but I wouldn't push it too hard. Just a heads-up, returning it could backfire since they might resell it due to the damage. It's a risky move.
Yeah, definitely reach out to them! Just be upfront about what happened so they can give you the right advice.