In a controlled environment with the right tools its likely that it can be kept to a minimum. But here we are talking about someone with no knowledge, tools or experience and the chance of this user causing alignment problems is high, especially considering the choice of WD...

I agree with Alexii. From the post, the user simply opened the hard drive and put in freezer. By opening the drive outside a clean room, he may have lessen the chance of recovery, but simply opening the drive is not enough to mess up the alignment.

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Well, some drive is sensitive enough for lost the alignment only when somebody opens the cover, other drives needs more to lost the alignment.
This is true for almost any wd including zeus families.

Janos