Celso Martinho

10 reasons to meltdown your Harddisk:

1. You realize you're an idiot for not having a recent backup.
2. You realize you're a complete idiot for not having a backup at all (you had to delete the other one because you needed the space for MAME roms).
3. You find the real value of storing all your E-Mail on an IMAP server.
4. You realize you should have the Sent folder on IMAP too.
5. You find that your old Powerbook G4, now restored from scratch, is still a great machine to work with for next year, and therefore you save a bunch of money.
6. You take the chance to renew and clean your RSS subscriptions, which you never had time to.
7. During your quest to recover documents from your "IMAP disk-drive" you'll find the most stupid things you believed in a couple of years ago. Makes you laugh, for a change.
8. Keychain is great, but the low risk of fire or earthquakes still makes the good old paper an excellent alternative for storing passwords or secure notes (crying now).
9. You'll find the coolest Mac software you never bothered to check out before.
10. You buy and actually use a backup utility until the drama is fresh.

Yes, it all happened to me. The freaking drive is as dead as it gets. I've tried everything, Disk Warrior, Data Rescue II, dd_rescude and dd_rhelp on Linux (which are great by the way, don't spend money on cute UIs, get a 2.5" to 3.5" HD cable and connect your drive to a Linux, dd_rhelp rocks. USB/IDE adaptors won't work well because most times the driver will disconnect the faulty device) but no help. Managed to recover 240 Megs out of 80 Gigs and suddenly the HD collapsed from block 0 to the last. Still thinking if I should send the drive to one of those expensive magic specialized companies that will autopsy your disk and eventually recover a couple more files.