Drive failure again

As I related a while back, I'd been having intermittent problems with a new USB external hard drive. I thought I'd resolved the issue, as the drive was correctly identified by the operating system and backups had resumed successfully. I wrote too soon.

When we got back from vacation last week, the USB drive was dead again. This time, it wasn't even pretending to work. The computer didn't acknowledge it when I plugged it in to the USB port . . . it was now an electric-powered brick.

I'm starting to get superstitious about any hardware I get from Best Buy: this is the second piece of equipment I bought from them this winter that's gone south. I had nearly the same level of infant mortality with a batch of hardware I bought there the previous year (four items bought, two of which didn't last the week). And in each case, the returns have to go back to the manufacturer, not to the store. Victor is still waiting for a wireless card replacement that was supposed to be shipped back from the manufacturer over a month ago.

Grrrrrr.