I guess you could say my answer, like the question, was a little brief. I could address a hundred issues that might have been raised, but weren't. Such as:
Is it impossible for a drive to be damaged in shipping? (The shipping company says so) No, it is certainly not impossible.
What sort of things might damage a hard drive during shipping? Chemicals and moisture, sure. Also vibration, dropping, being thrown about, in short, rough handling. The risk of damage from this cause can be reduced by proper packaging. For example, Amazon now make a point of telling you that they ship all their Western Digital drives in "WD certified packaging". They had a big problem about 2 years ago when they started using "frustration-free" packaging for many items. This was OK for some things like DVDs and pen drives, but lots of hard drives were arriving DOA and they were forced to change. (Google for stories like "Amazon’s ‘Frustration-Free’ Packaging Leaves a Trail of Dead Disks"). Of course it's much easier to damage a hard drive when the platters are spinning and the heads are unparked, but they are inherently fragile electro-mechanical devices and should be packed and treated carefully.
Did I goof when I sent a hard drive to a customer in a Cheerios box? Probably.
Maybe if the OP were to be a bit more specific about their concerns?
