Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/07/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]It is extremely difficult (though not impossible) for software problems to cause disk failures. Normally when you have a software-related disk problem, the issue is that the data get written incorrectly to the disk, or else are read incorrectly back from it. A crashed disk, one needing physical replacement, has something electrical or physical wrong with it. There is 1 chance in a million that this kind of failure is caused by software issues of any kind. It is also quite difficult (maybe 1 chance in 50,000) for the main computer hardware to do something that breaks disks. This is especially true when those disks are connected by USB or FireWire. When disks fail and need replacement, it is because something physical has changed inside the disk. It is very unlikely that electrical power phenomena can cause disk failure. This is because the electric power is not used directly by the disk. The mains voltage is converted to low-voltage DC, and that converted power is used to operate the disk. If there is an anomaly of some kind on the electric power mains, the power supply itself is usually what fries. I would offer odds of 1 in 200,000 that a power mains event damaged a disk without damaging at least one other part of the computer, usually the power supply. The most common problems are heat, humidity, and manufacturing defects. Heat can really trash a disk. Humidity is not quite as bad as heat, but the combination of heat and humidity can be deadly. Other problems are vibration and dust. When a disk is turned off, it is very rugged and quite immune to dust. When it is turned on, it requires an environment that is free of vibration and dust, to say nothing of heat and moisture. So don't expect a software upgrade, or even the replacement of your computer itself, to solve a problem that is causing disks to be damaged. It's very much more likely that the damage is caused by the abovementioned environmental factors and not by malicious signals or bad electricity being transmitted to the disk over its connecting wires. Brian