After this horrifying experience, I'm planning to do this: 1. Get a cheap RAID card such as the Promise TX2300 2. Get another 500GB hard disk, non-Seagate, probably WD 3. Make a RAID 1 out of the 500GB Seagate + WD and store my data in there 4. At the same time, use Mozy or some form of online backups (I have Mozy backups of some of my data in the Seagate 7200.11 but not all, e.g. huge video files) 5. Backup certain key data into 2-3 DVDs (high quality DVDs) Now if the Seagate shows this same problem again, at least I will have the WD. Can't be that bad luck that both the Seagate+WD kaputs at the same time... or if the Promise TX2300 dies then I guess my data might be compromised too. But more important than all, this experience has taught me what faceless huge corporations might do (or rather might not do) to help their individual customers when hit with such 'firmware' defects. I personally have worked for 2 huge corporations much larger than Seagate, and I cannot imagine myself/us doing this to our customers.... As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I've seen plenty of dead WDs (and not just in computers either). I stopped buying them in 2001 (for a few years anyhow), after having 4 of them (big & expensive ones) die on me within 2 weeks... I have some now, no problems with them yet. That's pretty much it. Quality goes up and down, different bugs appear, manufacturing problems, QA problems and what not. No manufacturer is perfect, and it's always a bit of a gamble.