Replace original HDD before sending for repair?

[chazas]

I have a T410s - when I bought it I replaced the original HDD with an aftermarket SSD. I unfortunately dropped my baby and broke a piece off the bottom part of the case, behind the optical drive. Luckily, I have have an onsite warranty and Thinkpad protection service (which covers accidental damage). Unluckily, they won't do the protection service onsite, it has to be sent in to the repair depot.

They tell me that it is suggested that a HDD be included when the machine is sent in for repair. I don't know why for just a case repair, but whatever. Should I swap out the SSD for the original HDD before I send it in, for security reasons? If I do, is there anything I need to do other than physically swapping the drives, then re-swapping it when it comes back?

Thanks.

[erik]

you should either pull your hard drive and send it in empty or install your original HDD if it doesn't have any sensitive data on it.   there's no need to send in your data.   the drive could come back wiped clean.

[redhook]

Never include any aftermarket parts when you send in your machine for a repair, you may not get them back. Lenovo even advises you to remove any aftermarket parts before having the machine serviced.

[sunshine]

I don't know if this helps but my T410 made a few trips to the depot. I did not have the original hard drive and I did not run into any issues because of that. It also had more RAM than it originally came with. However, just in case, I wiped the hard drive before shipping it and restored Windows. I did wiping overnight and then loaded an image of the hard drive in maybe 15 minutes. You never know what might happen between the time you drop it off and get it back.

Once I accidentally left an SD card in the card reader with my pictures on it. The card came back with everything on it.