> All correct.  And I agree that he probably won't have much luck.
> I will say, however, that I have had many, many drives open for
> repair and platter replacements in relatively clean but not "clean-
> room" conditions.  All survived fine; in fact, many continued to
> run for several years without problems afterward"

If I may quote from Scott Mueller's vast tome "Upgrading And
Repairing PCs"

"Many PC users think that hard drives are fragile, and generally
they are one of the most fragile components in the PC. In my
weekly PC Hardware and Troubleshooting or Data Recovery
seminars, however, I have run various hard disks for days with
the lids off, and have even removed and installed the covers
while the drives were operating. Those drives continue to store
data perfectly to this day with the lids either on or off. Of course
I do not recommend that you try this with your own drives ; neither
would I use it on my larger, more expensive, drives"

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