Miracles do happen in different ways. I had an old 800MB Western Digital in my machine where I worked die. I couldn't get it to work, the techs couldn't do anything so we replaced it and I put the thing on a shelf. A few years later when I left, I took it with me just for the heck. Later when I was running out of space on my system, I plugged the thing in and it worked and the original data was intact. I don't even remember if I reformatted but the drive's been working fine ever since. Maybe I'm just lucky but in 20+ years, starting with a 10MB that cost $500, I've only had one drive go well and truly bad - at least I think it's dead.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken