That sounds reasonable, but it was just 3 years old.  The one I replaced it with was a Maxtor that was at least 7 years old with lots of use (sitting back in the box the last year and a half).  Guess I need to tell him to replace it before he loads it up.

AnnaSummers

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Don Penlington 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Hard drive invisible


Anna wrote:
>The installation begins, but then says it cannot find any hard 
>drive.  There is a hard drive (WD) with very little use and all the cables 
>are secure.>>


Google recently reported that a survey of its huge number of hard drives 
indicated that age, rather than usage, was the most significant factor in 
determining the failure rate of hard drives.

Therefore it's quite likely that age may have killed it. I believe that 
after 5 years, the likelihood of hard drive failure increases considerably, 
regardless of how much use it has had.

Don Penlington


 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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