While the drive does have a “very specific firmware profile and configuration”, the firmware, by all reports, is not on the hard drive but on the electronic board, and changing the drive is quite possible.
Read this thread and note that PuDLeZ says that the MPW boots without a hard drive in it, and that there is only one partition on the drive. It is possible that there is a hidden partition, but then…
… read this blog post which describes a modification to the MPW which allows the drive to be changed over at any time.
DO READ the comments on the blog post. Pay particular attention to the discussion about replacing a 1TB drive in a 1TB MPW with a 2TB drive. You would need to check there is space, but it seems it has been done. I leave it to you to FACT CHECK and then measure up the MPW once you have disassembled it.
I AM NOT suggesting you do the mod. Just use the post to understand how to remove and replace the drive.
Also, once you have the drive out of the MPW you may wish to check it connected to a PC. It could be fine, and the drop may have just lossened a connection. Or it may have broken the main board in the MPW. So if the drive works connected to a PC, check the MPW board carefully, and then put the drive back in properly and see if the MPW works again.
