That really stinks. And WD is usually a good brand too.

wow, you are seriously the first WD i have ever heard of failing... i'm running dual 40g WD'* right now, but it'* time to upgrade as they are full..., have to 100g+ drives become cheap yet?

That'* funny cuz I have seen more dead WD drives than any other brand. Plenty of Maxtors too.

maybe it has something to do with temp and humidity....maybe different manufacturing plants...

I find that WD and Maxtors are the two best brands... but I've see plenty of them die too. Normally they die very quickly after purchase (within weeks).

Does your HD have a manufactoring date on it? month/year?

We find that most HDs shipped (ie made soon before or during) the winter months have a much higher failure rate then others. We suspect it'* due to the fact they are normally kept in truck containers that are not temp controlled, and thus freeze & thaw (while in a warehouse) and then freeze again when they go on the move.

I just know that in April/May/June is when we get the majority of our HD replacements.... right after the winter months.

In my experience, I found that Seagate is the best, and then WD comes right behind. I usually see failures from Maxtors.

It all depends on how your memory is used as well. If you have a large swap file, your hard drive is being over-used constantly, and that can thrash the disks, and it shortens the life of it. Heat plays a huge factor as well.

heat does play a huge factor, the 3g quantum fireball this box came with died after a 100 degree day, being used constantly as a file server for the house.
I've got two 4" fans on these 40g WD'* they're two years old now.

If someone gave me a Maxtor, I would throw it out, I wouldn't even sell it cause I wouldn't want to inflict the hell that is Maxtor HDs on any human being.

Well now that you know I dislike Maxtors, I strongtly recommend IBM Deskstars. Rock solid baby. I swear by them. And I run my drives HARD.

curiosity got the best of me, mine were both built aug 21 01, SN'* are sequintial

18 May 2002 is my manufacturing date...i also have a 200gb WD in there for like movies and such and thats been running fine for like 5 months or so (knock on wood) ummm my comp usually runs around 38 degrees Celsius on average like 36 at school and 41 at home but yea....i guess ill jus send it back bc it has a 3 yr warranty which is good