This royally sucks. Two of my external harddrives; one firewire and one USB, have failed on me after several years of usage. Hoping my tech buddy can somehow save the data on them or access it at least to be able to back it up. If not, I'm screwed :( This really ticks me off. If anyone is gracious enough to wanna lend me a hand by donating a contribution to replace these two items, please do: PayPal - rhartl@new.rr.com . Thank you in advance if you do contribute. Anything is helpful and appreciated.