Technology in Mind

“Click, Click, Click”, the Western Digital My Book hard drive continued to churn as it denied it’s presence to my computer.  So I unplugged the firewire cable from the hard drive and plugged it in again. “Click, Click, Click”, it continued it’s dysfunctional state. I tried plugging it into different firewire ports, unplugged the power cable and reconnected, and even rebooted the PC.  My episode suddenly became reminiscent of an Edgar Allen Poe story wherein the clicks became more audible to my ears, laughing and sneering at my situation.

Lest you think I’ve gone mad, and as reassurance to myself that my sanity was still intact, I searched the indexes of google to see if my incident was an anomaly.  And in a twisted sort of way, I found comfort in a group of individuals that had fell victim to the same heckling of the clicking sound.

You might think that I’m being quite unfair and despondent to the suffering of a dying hard drive, except that I can speak to the souring of our relationship before this particular day.

I was initially enamored with my external WD My Book hard drive, relishing in it’s bountiful storage space. It’s flashing blue eye tempted and beckoned me to fill it’s vast spaces with the contents of my plentiful data. I gladly obliged, filling it with music, pictures, and videos. And even so, it’s satiety was lacking and I dutifully began using it to backup the other computers on my network. With it’s enormous appetite I established it as a storage area for my PVR, feeding it vast amounts of video to fill it’s longing sectors.

Little did I suspect the drive to have any ill intent, at least not initially. But in hindsight I now sense the foreshadowing of it’s evil plan.  At first it tempted me with it’s flashing eyes to trust my data to it’s 500GB of space. It worked diligently to become a respected device in my network, earning it’s trust in it’s utility. Once it had sensed my reliance upon it, it began it’s taunts.

It taunted me with sudden disconnects as a network drive! Just when I planned to copy a file, the drive mapping was suddenly gone.  This was sporadic and it’s timing seemed to be in correlation to how urgently it felt my need.

It taunted me with it’s disappearance to the PVR’s scheduled recordings! I could feel it’s glee from knowing that in it’s absence it caused me to miss an episode of 24 or Prison Break.

It celebrated my frustrations in attempting to reconnect, enjoying my trials of unplugging the firewire cable in and out, repowering it on and off, until it suddenly would reappear of it’s own accord! There seemed to be no logic or reason as to when it would work or wouldn’t, no methodology could be discerned. It would begin working again upon it’s own accord.

And then it’s final taunt, it bore out it’s fiendish plan, something I now suspect was preconceived. As the My Book hard drive self-destructed with my precious data, it heckled and laughed with his flashing blue eye, and sounds of “Click, Click, Click”!

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