[bitterohiogunclinger]

Well, I can't comment on your paranoia, but I wouldn't ship anything back to anyone with sensitive data on it. Any reason why you can't remove the hard drive and access it with a sata cable? I've never had one apart so I'm asking if at some level they are not just plugged into a USB to SATA converter. If you could, then you could retrieve your data and erase the drive before shipping it back. If not, the very minimum of taking a huge magnet to it might work?

[benjibrowder]

If you’re going to take it apart, you might as well replace the bad part yourself.