[sean.bonner]

Say for example I'm using my external, then I leave it on by accident for an extended period of time (such as overnight lets say) and it overheats (I'm just assuming this happened)... is it possible for an external to flub out?

My brand new 500 isn;t working after leaving on overnight by accident. Now, has this happened to anyone? Is this a problem that can fix itself if I just leave it be for a bit?

I will have lost my faith in External hard-drives if I can't recover any of this.

And Mr. Slogett... if you're reading this, I may take you up on the prior offer of me sending this to you. This is just so damn frustrating. This was a Christmas present. Like... just over a month... what a piece of junk.

I hope that this solves itself...




...it never does though .

[Corby]

I got a 500gig for christmas, too. I leave it on overnight regularly, and haven't had any problems.

I remember google doing a study of failure rates of their drives:



Theres some more info here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://storagemojo.com/?p=378">http://storagemojo.com/?p=378</a><!-- m -->

I've had small drives go (a disk thumb drive) and I popped it in the freezer overnight and after thawing it worked. I can't remember where I got that tip, if it works for larger drives or what exact problem it corrects.

Not much help, but maybe some of this can point you in a direction.

[chris]

I leave my drives on overnight all the time. If they are just left on they shouldn't be overheating as they aren't doing anything... ie. no data is being read/written.

That you've had two drives die in rapid succession leads me to believe that it might not be the drives that are failing, rather something on or connected to your computer that's the culprit.

And if the drive is only a month old, exchange it for a new one. If you are concerned about the data on the drive, I guess you don't have any of it backed up.

[sean.bonner]

Yeah...
I would be convinced it was my computer if I didn't just get a brand new Macbook in December.

Man, this is frustrating. Here's hoping this can be recovered.