Question can i plug my new hard drive without mounting it?

[niceman]

i never did this before im being very delicate with it. i can see you must be. i would take off the old hdd and mount the new one but, i dont have the right screw driver. if i just plug it in without mounting it can anything bad happen? can the new hard drive explode? anything that is gonna cause me hardship? it says i must ground myself to avoid ESD problems. this is not my expertise somebody please help? can i just plug it in and let it lay carefully in the pc tower? oh am i gonna get a static shock if i dont ground myself? sigh. why is this so hard!

 

[niceman]

no replies?

 

[Lafong]

Having a hard time understanding your issues.

Maybe you can re-write it.

Nothing is likely to "explode". If your drive is new, it may be dead on arrival right now for all we know.

If you don't find a usable screw driver, you aren't going far.

Is this a traditional spinning hard drive or an SSD?

A spinning hard drive should not just be laid down in a PC tower. You might get away with that if it is an SSD.

Shocks might have some effect on components and can be avoided, but I'd guess most do not use a grounding strap. You personally are extremely unlikely to be shocked as long as you don't get inside the power supply.

 

[niceman]

its a wd blue hdd

 

[Lafong]

You should be able to just connect the proper cables to it to see if it will spin up at all....without physically screwing it down to anything.

Handle it carefully. Don't drop it or bang it against something.

But I wouldn't go farther than that without mounting it, which you may not be able to do because you lack the proper tools.