David C. Partridge wrote:
Hmmmm why do you want to open the case of the drive? If you open it
outside a class 1 clean room, the drive WILL die.

No matter what you do with it, the drive WILL die. It's the
unfortunate, but inevitable destiny that we all share.

I've opened hard drives again and again in very filthy rooms and
they've never shown any ill effects over the days, or in some cases
weeks, that I operated them. I do this all the time with old drives
because I can see what's happening inside the drive while I test my
control circuitry.

If I was manufacturing hundreds of thousands of drives and had to worry
about warranties and customer satisfaction, I'd be doing it in a clean
room. And I would buy a new drive before attempting to repair a damaged
one. But you definitely can operate a hard drive without the cover for
a while; probably long enough to do whatever you want if you don't
dawdle.