hard drive from retail external case was stolen-how to handle?

[AllGold]

Happy ending. I took it back today and told the whole story. They gave me a refund. The CS rep believed me and wondered out loud how many returns for non-working drives on this model might have been for the same reason since most people would have just returned it as dead without looking inside.

I would have exchanged it but the store didn't have any more. It might also have been the universe telling me that I didn't really need it--which I didn't.