spooky coincidence or disk killer virus?

[Tod Merley]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Tom Horsley <tom.horsley at att.net> wrote:
> Friday, my system disk died, so I took that as a sign to
> reinstall everything from scratch and reorganize my partitions
> (not to mention getting a much bigger disk). I figure the disk
> picked Friday to die because it knew fedora updates and livna
> build system were down, so it would be the most inconvenient
> time it could possibly pick to die :-).
>
> Today, my 2nd disk with lots of data died as well (the new
> disk is currently getting filled back up via rsync from
> my backup drive).
>
> Is this just a sign of superb quality control in the samsung
> disk factories turning out identical disks that last almost
> the exact same amount of time in the same CPU case with the
> same number of power cycles?
>
> Or is there some spooky virus around that can actually destroy
> the electronics in disk drives (both disks appear to be so dead
> they can't even be recognized as disk drives by the BIOS).
>
> These were 2 samsung HD160JJ sata disks ordered at the same time
> and probably pulled from the same box, both made 2006.1 according
> to the date stamp.
>
> I hope this isn't the same problem livna and fedora infrastructure
> had :-).
>
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Hi Tom Horsley!

I agree with the others, most likey power or impulse related.  Brown
outs or spikes from large electric motors or welding devices or
lightning can take out a lot of things.  Also, if your weather over
there is hot and the air handling in the unit is poor I suppose they
could overheat.  If the enviornment is cold but then you open a door
to the hot outside it is possible to create water condensation inside
a unit which can do very strange things indeed.

It is likely that whatever is in the enviornment that took the one
dirve weakened the other.  Either way your sense of them dieing to
gether because they were made the same and in the same enviornment is
valad.

To look for a possible virus connection google your manufacturer of HD
and MB together and apart along with the word "virus", firmware,
problem, and failure.

Good hunting!

Tod