When It Rains, It Pours!

[MuddyEddie]

I have had several bad experiences with Maxtor drives. That was before Seagate bought Maxtor BTW.

Same here. I've seen way too many Maxtor drives that die shortly after their warranty expires! One year I replaced 8 drives in computers at my work... all Maxtor and all with less than five years of use.

[DeepSink]

....I've seen way too many Maxtor drives that die shortly after their warranty expires! One year I replaced 8 drives in computers at my work... all Maxtor and all with less than five years of use.

Boggy Man: I'm very sorry to hear about your dad's accident, and glad that he is getting better. I think I know how frustrated he may be from times that I've had to "take it easy" following surgery or mishap. The inactivity can drive you batty.

My 2 cents' worth on HDDs is that you're running on borrowed time after the first 2-3 years, depending on how many hours/day the computer is running. Only safe thing is to keep a backup of at least your important files.

DeepSink

[Boggy Man]

Once again, thanks for the replies. My dad is continuing to recover. He has noticed that his head is clearer than before, and just today, he said that he did notice an improvement in his vision. He still feels dizzy at times, and the doctor tried prescribing him some medication for inner ear infection, but it didn't seem to work. A while back, when my dad was feeling frustrated with his slow recovery, the doctor used as an example, hockey player Sidney Crosby, whose concussion took him out for an entire season. My dad's broken rib and collar bone are also healing quite nicely.

I decided to stick with the HD I bought (Lacie d2 quadra), because the newer one with the Thunderbolt interface would be a bit expensive once it comes out, and the super high data transfer rates for just a backup drive would be overkill, more suited for audio/video work. I have my external drive connected via Firewire 800, but I have yet to format it, and have to decide on the best format (HFS+ or Journaled HFS+ ) for the backup drive. My Apple dealer thinks that the external drive contains a Seagate. My iMac's internal drive is a Western Digital drive. Both drives are 1 TB. I also upgraded to OS X 10.7 Lion, which has interesting features, such as when you are scrolling by stroking the magic mouse, the movement of the page contents match the movement of your finger, opposite of the movement of the scroll bar(s). This makes the finger swipes on the mouse match those swipes on the touch screens of phones and tablet computers, although the zoom motions don't work with the magic mouse. Now, the apps can go full screen, and two-fingered swipes can go between the full screen apps, as well as the dashboard (widget screen).

Things appear to be looking up, because while the past two months (June-uary and July-tober) have been cooler than normal, they haven't been wetter than normal. So, water levels will have been dropping while I waited for the warmer weather to return. As of Thursday, July 28'th, the weather finally turned around, with persistently drier and warmer weather finally here! Some clouds on some days, but temperatures are remaining summery! Now, we are getting temperatures pushing up above 30˚C, or 86˚F, and looks like it will last for some time! So, conditions are perfect for biking, hiking and sinking, and I can't wait to see how wonderful my Crescent Road pond sinking area is now!

But, however, the subject line of this thread is "When It Rains, It Pours!". In keeping with that topic, on the evening of Wednesday, July 27'th, the day before things turned around weatherwise, I smashed my baby toe on the corner of our trunk in the basement, with it making a sound similar to that made when you break a chicken thigh bone from a leg bone. I was reeling in pain, and my foot swelled up, and has been painful to walk on that side. I felt it, but couldn't feel any broken bones, but suspect there could be a fracture. I never bothered to see the doctor about it, because all he could do is have me get it x-rayed, and then suggest I tape that toe to the adjacent toe, and take it easy for several weeks. But, summer weather has just begun here, finally, and things typically go downhill in September. So, I am uncertain if I can do any sinking at the present, since walking barefoot in the meadows (uneven ground, hidden sticks, logs and branches, and bouncy ground that sags under the feet, bending upwards away from the feet) would subject upward pressure on all my toes, and make things worse. I did think about getting some junk footwear for sinking in, but cleanup would require me to remove it to clean my feet, and subject them once again to possible re-injury walking around. It started to feel better recently, but after a day of hoeing the garden, it got worse. It is improving again, and it is a series of trials and errors to see what I can and can't do. The swelling has mostly disappeared, but I noticed that my foot had areas of blue and purple beyond the outer edges of where the swelling was, in places that weren't even injured (but also purple under the injured toe). Fluid from the swelling must have pushed blood from the injured part into the uninjured parts.

But, I did discover that I can still bike with no pain, and in fact, while biking, my foot actually gets a rest, since the injured part doesn't touch the pedal. In fact, this past day, Thursday, August 4'th, I took off on my first bikeride in around a month to check things out at both my Crescent Road pond and my mud lake pond (has been flooded for the past while, but with all the excess snow earlier in the season, perhaps it could have been too much for the beaver dam to hold), with planned short hikes, no sinking, but some pix. However, the subject line of this thread is "When It Rains, It Pours!". So, around two hours into my bikeride, just as I was getting close to the major climb out of the valley, things felt bouncy, and I seemed to be swaying from side to side a bit. I felt my tires, and my rear tire was getting soft! I found a piece of metal in it, and managed to get back to the highway before it went totally flat! I had my parents pick me up, and I got a new tire and tube (also a new helmet to replace my old one, which was missing a spongy insert, and some new workboots). So, my first bikeride in weeks with limited hiking was ruined by a flat tire! I will try again Saturday, and hope that my foot continues to improve (elevating it for 40 minutes caused all pain to disappear until I started working again).