Pretty Dead Things...

OK, here's the quick version, since Blogger has once again kindly reminded me to keep these things short and sweet...seems once I get rolling on an entry, the browser crashes. Guess we don't share the same sense of humour...? Actually, I'm gonna type this up in NeoOffice, which auto-saves every minute, then add the links later, let's see them try to stop me now!

I was in the process of telling the story about how my Maxtor One Touch II external 200GB drive died this weekend. I had been using it flawlessly for the past week at my work to provide some extra room for my projects. On Friday when I was done, I re-saved everything back to the internal drives so our server could back it up, and so I could bring my drive home.

However, once I got it home and plugged it in, the two blue LEDs on its face would just blink in unison. The drive still sounded like it was still spinning up, and a Google search suggested that the enclosure itself is probably dead, but most people pop the drive out into another enclosure with good success.

Fortunately, I already had such an enclosure. So I popped the Maxtor case open, removed the drive, and stuck it in the Ultra. Attaching it to my Mac in the usual fashion (via Firewire)...nothing. Ok, try the other FW port...nothing. Hmm. Try the USB port. Nope. The drive inside wasn't spinning up, similar to how it was in the Maxtor. But it wasn't my ports.

Yes, the Ultra enclosure turned out to have died also. Yes, extremely weird timing.

So, a quick perusal of the usual online hardware retailers (NCIX, FutureShop, Best Buy, Staples) and I found the AcomData 590 USB at Staples for $43. So far, it's working great. It's kind of a hassle to get the drive in there, the instructions are actually missing a couple steps (such as “screw the stand to the actual drive, don't just leave it hanging loose like sleeve of wizard”) but once it is, it ain't movin'! And it's fanless, which is required for me, I can't tolerate fan noise, hence the iMac.

Also, I picked up a Digital Research Technologies 500GB drive for $200 at Best Buy on Friday. Now my iMac has it's 500GB safely mirrored externally, and it can be booted from in case of emergency, thanks to SuperDuper, the ultimate drive mirroring software for not a lot of money.

So, I didn't lose any data, but it was quite a couple of days. Anyway, better post this before Blogger gets angry again. I was using FireFox, but that's two strikes, so I'm back to Safari. Safari integration is pretty sad though, it doesn't let you do any sort of formatting, check spelling, add pictues, or even links. Stupid. But it's free.