Ann, It would appear that the design of the hard drive enclosure is poor, not allowing enough air circulating inside - this leads to overheating, and when metal components get hot, they expand. With small and critical tolerances, this leads to early failure.
If you want to continue using the drive in the short term, find the air vent holes (I think they are in the base on this one) and orientate the device so those holes are pointing straight up. Keep it cool - maybe next to a window. Retrieve your data. It could well be that the hard drive inside will continue to function perfectly normally inside a different enclosure, or better yet, in a drive dock like Paul has and recommended. But don't bank on it. Whatever hard drive you have, it is a pretty good idea to have two of them (not necessarily by the same manufacturer!) and use one as your main external drive, and the other purely as a duplicate safety backup. That way, you will always have a failsafe copy of all your data. Hope this helps and best of luck (and a hug!) -- Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ---------- http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
