It was mostly external HD reviews I was looking at. And the ones with the big-ass fans didn't seem to be any better than the "quiet" ones. Though they did cost more...

I wonder if it's the software (driver) that's the problem. Some people mentioned that when they reformatted the drive, it worked again. But who wants to keep re-formatting their hard drive? If I wanted to do that, I'd still be using Windows 98. ;-)