If I was paying $1000 I'd want my drive opened
before powering on again.
As you have said the chance is small but it is not zero. If they were to
tell me: " We're sorry=2C when we powered it up all of the surfaces were
damages because bits of grit got under that heads when they loaded."=2C
I'd conside legal processes.
But they're not going to say that, are they? They;ll say something like
'Unfortunately we were unable to recover your data' There will be drives
where the data in not recoverable (by anybody).
-tony