Man, forty minutes of cable swapping is nothing though. I get why it stings on a 6 month old build, you expect new stuff to just work, but a bad SATA cable is like the cheapest part in the whole case and they die all the time. I keep a couple spares in my drawer now (learned that one the hard way too) so when a drive drops out I can swap it in two seconds and know right away if that's the problem. Honestly the humbling part for me was never the cable, it was how long I sat there blaming the drive or the port before I even thought to try a different cable. Glad you got it sorted either way, that kind of stuff makes you way faster at fixing it the next time.

Seems kind of unfair to blame the out of state group for not knowing a place closed when that stuff changes week to week and honestly the shop owners are the ones who should be updating their own listings. Half the "local" lists people pass around on facebook are outdated too, so you really are not gaining much by finding a better one. The smart move is just to call ahead or drive by before you buy anything, that takes five minutes and saves you the whole headache. And if a spot takes your gift card money and then shuts down, that is on them, not on some promo page. Take the L on the 85 bucks and next time do cash or a plain visa card so your crew can spend it wherever they want.