buy_used

How so? By future laws that outlaw resales? Make do-it-yourself repairs illegal?

Yeah, that would suck.

Buy a used platter of off eBay or from your favorite reseller of refurbished equipment (and keep the receipt). Replace the disk's controller with one of your own (the one it came with was broken). Ummm, I dunno what the previous owner of this drive has done with it!