Last week my wife got a BSOD. It was intermittent, but finally it flat-lined. I picked up a 7200 Seagate 40 with a 2MB cache for $59.

I'm amazed that I didn't destroy the 3-piece front/top cover. It's actually four pieces if you count the pivoting USB/Serial connection cover. It took a combination of careful prying and then looking for spring clips whenever it didn't want to budge.

The most annoying, expletive-generating part was the drive cage. It was actually
a good idea if all you wanted to do was change jumper settings. In the front on one side, top and bottom there were PEM studs so the cage would pivot out on a curved rail type track on the top at a 45-degree angle. The thing is, there's a screw on the other Godamn side of the cage and to replace the hard drive, you have to remove the cage. It's not too bad if you carefully hold the IDE cables out of the way as you pull the cage out of its curved pivot slots and top track.

The fun starts when trying to get the cage back into the slots and avoid trashing the cables. It may not sound that bad but it's awfully tight in there.

Ok, now for the most interesting part (to me). I re-established her Internet connection, went to the Zone first (naturally) and then checked my email (no attachments). After getting off line, I found I had picked up a few friends- the Blaster and the Nichi worms. The wife went to MS and ran some removal tools. We've never had a problem with worms or viruses before.

I guess because it was a two-year-old XP installation disc and we didn't have any of the XP/IE security updates we were especially susceptible to this crap.(?)