Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83
If I were you, assuming they send another WD and your boss would bankroll a tougher drive, I would diskcopy the contents of the new disk onto a Fujitsu Extended Duty and re-use the WD as an external USB "backup disk". This would lower it's usage and reduce it's likelihood of leaving you in the lurch.
Even though hard disks can "take anything" these days, I treat them as if they are still 20 year old technology. I always try to keep the hard disk platter oriented in the horizontal plane. If I carry the laptop while it's running, I walk with it as if it is a bowl of soup. More computer voodoo, I know, but I have been lucky overall (knock on virtual wood). The hard disk is more important than the computer. But, my experience is not yours because I don't use it "on the road". It basically goes from safe work environment to safe home environment to safe coffee shop.
The weak link in portables is still the hard disk. They are coming out with solid state (flash) hard disks. But the capacities are small and they cost an arm, a leg, and an ear.
CarloSW2
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I'll have to admit, I qualify for nerd status -- I carry 2 laptops when I travel.
My work laptop is so locked-down, I can't even add a printer. Very frustrating.
So then, I carry the second (personally owned) machine as a way to game, access my radio freqs for storm spotting/reporting, and to act as an MP3 player. I'm still too cheap to buy an iPOD, so I run the laptop to play music, using an inverter and (if the rental is equipped) an AUX cable to the stereo. The XPS came with a remote (docked in the PCMCIA slot when unused) so I can skip songs and adjust volume without taking the eyes off of the road or
SG 
So then, the laptop is subject to vertical stresses with the up/down motion of road bumps and undulations -- not to mention aircraft turbulence. I hear that this is hard on HDDs. I'm not sure what airport X-ray devices have on computers these days either.
The thing is, 7 years of this kind of use has never failed a laptop drive. The life of this refurb model is very questionable, however. There was even gunk on the keyboard when they shipped it to me (yuck). At least it's an upgrade.
My work machine is an HP NC6400. So far, very durable over 2-3 years and rarely crashes. Before that, we had terrible IBMs. These days, If something goes wrong, IT takes care of it quickly. It is very integral to job function and stays at 100%. They even issued us Blackberry's to check e-mail in real-time (and check EM while in WIFI darkness
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Long story short, the personal machine's data is somewhat expendable, but is personal. I have a large Seagate in a backup server at home that saves data regularly. It would still stink to lose the last 2-weeks of collected FE data, etc. Photos are backed-up to a DVD and placed in a fire-proof safe, so that's all good. In the electronic age, if it isn't printed, it has to be backed up in duplicate.
So then, that's my computing life in 100 words or less.
Coyote-X: I guess whenever they send me a new system, the warranty is extended from date of possession. The flash drive backup is looking more and more like a viable, portable solution (and getting cheaper by the day).
The odd thing, my last POS HP is still going as the "Living Room DVD Player" and Gene Folding (100% CPU Load) unit. It's on it's 4th board since the AC connector created too much stress and would bust the connector repeatedly. Since it just sits, it keeps going. It was bought during my days as an independent contractor (from Best Buy). They just sent me an offer to extend the warranty. It's still cheaper than a DVD player, so I might go for it.
RH77