spooky coincidence or disk killer virus?

[Alan Cox]

> Is this just a sign of superb quality control in the samsung
> disk factories turning out identical disks that last almost
> the exact same amount of time in the same CPU case with the
> same number of power cycles?

I gad a very similar thing happen with IBM disks and a raid 1 array. That
near miss taught me a lesson about mixing drives in a raid array.

> Or is there some spooky virus around that can actually destroy
> the electronics in disk drives (both disks appear to be so dead
> they can't even be recognized as disk drives by the BIOS).

In theory some drives can be firmware flashed and destroyed. In practice
there are several more likely things I can think of as well as
the identical disks case:

- Power problems
- Exposure to strong magnetic fields (the firmware is mostly stored on
disk so if you trash the disk in a big magnetic field it may not register
in future..)
- Nearby lightning strike damaging electroncis.

Or it could just be chance....