I stripped the screw holding this HDD in place and pulled too hard pulling up the little piece of connector metal (top left) can I fix this? I was not running raid 5 on this, so is it’s data lost?
Did I just break this HDD? (IT guys help me Plz)
Unless your connectors are destroyed it can still be used. I have a few he’d that do not have any surrounding plastic that still work fine
so long as you not punctured the vacuum inside then it is quite likely still working.
Be gentle in pushing in the connector from the photo it looks a little bent and so might catch and be bent in by connector. Bright torch and magnifying glass.
Of course anything above Raid 0 will protect from drive failure. Personally I use mirroring to a separate server to cover both drive and bigger failure types (I run Linux and rsync)
The drive should still work but as @nigelhealy and @elmo41683 have mentioned be careful when reconnecting as you’ve compromised some of the support for the cable connector itself.
Could be a good opportunity to switch to an SSD drive (if it’s not a crazy size), as the speed boost and reliability are noticeable.