my 4 month old seagate 320gb dying on me now.. got wierd sound inside when shake, n never drop, bang thing near it also... some how the laser arm is loose n could hear the disc inside spinning when shake... n that one is full with files... omg omg... been using seagate for years no prob.. this one made in china which from day one im not satisfied with the quality, the pin look thin n weak n etc... gonna rma it soon but need to get a new 320gb or 400gb first to salvage what can from it... its a heart break!!  ...

These are pretty old but some of those facts still do apply

Reference: Eight Ways To Kill Your HDD (Part 1) http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/ibm_maxtor/3.shtml
On the round cable issue, I am using them.. However I always check for qualified and quality ones before buying.. (mine is from CoolerMaster)

my western digital 40MB still functioning up till now..aint that a record..but no use la 40MB,,maybe now they make hdd lower cost so the lifespan is not that long

Removable Drive Racks

Aside from the speculations about rounded cables, there are some hard data on removable drive racks. Removable drive racks are casings that can be inserted into a 5.25 drive bay and which hold a HDD inside a casing that can slide in and out the drive bay to lock into a connector in the back of the device. Even though this kind of gizmo does not allow hot swapping of HDDs, it allows removal of a drive at the turn of a key or so the manufacturers claim.

We tested several of these devices with the IBM 60GXP and the unfortunate result was that not a single drive survived in the removable rack for more than a few hours. Symptoms usually started with lagging of the system to go to the Windows splash screen after the POST. This lag continued to get progressively worse over several reboots until the drive finally was no longer recognized at all.

Interestingly, if the drive was removed from the removable racks during the initial stages of errors and hooked up to a standard UATA cable, full functionality was restored immediately. Whenever we waited until the drive was no longer recognized, switching back could not resolve the problems anymore.


A repetition of the above background appears like carrying owls to Athens but   imagine an additional interface with rerouting of the signals from the original cable to a snap-in connector and from there through an additional cable inside the "coffin" to the drive. In short, adding three additional interfaces does not appear a good idea.   Per se, though, the concept is great, though, only, don't use it with anything faster than a UATA/66 drive.

can i ask here, i use notebook and always scan at airport to going home, someone told me if always scan can cause hard disk damage, that is true?

My experiece, I bought a new hdd. Very happy. but just when i went out the shop, the plastic bag broke n the hdd drop on the floor. I went back n format it. Everything seen ok. Using it now...