Try not to be too hard on any hardware mfr, as, probably, one in ten gets a cursory check, and one in 100 probably gets a thorough check. Like cars, we get a lemon once in a while...but that is not necessarily a reason for not driving a particular brand of car any more. HP has been a pretty stable company for many yrs...there may be a bit of upset presently, in the Board Room, but not in their products. I support them, even after having a few blips on my screen.
I did some research on hardware a couple of yrs back...monitors were said to last, on average, 5 yrs [I actually had one go down smoking ozone on my desk, that is what prompted my research]; hard drives, 3 yrs; key boards 5 yrs; mice, the same...
I have had hard drives last forever...I am still using the same one on my junker, bought 10 yrs ago...mind you it gets little use any more. And my newest one, about 3 yrs old, has had two drives in it already, and I am on my third [as one nears its "time" I relegate it to slave status]...but it gets daily use, and almost 24 hrs a day... so I would say, it may be a function of useage... those swing arms take their toll on the wee platters over time, and all your data ends up as a pile of dust on the bottom of the computer... So, the platter mfr may be more at fault then the maker of the actual computer...
Here are a couple of sites to consider...to get a "feel" for the process...
http://free-backup.i...overy-done.htmlhttp://www.pcworld.c...,1/article.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia....i/Data_recovery
Edited by b1caez01, 04 November 2006 - 07:17 PM.