Hi all

After my hard drive died yesterday, the journey into work and back today was just too much without at least some music so, when I got home tonight, I decided to stick an old 540mb laptop drive into the player until I get my hands on another drive.

After I'd put the drive in, I fired the player up and all was well. I then put the case back together, and got a drive error. So I stripped it all down again, got it working, reassembled, and same thing. In the end, I found it was nothing to do with the drive cable.

With the case lid off, the player works fine. With the lid on, I get a drive error. Moving the lid over the drive when it's running causes odd noises to come from the drive. Thinking it was something like the fact the case lid has become magnetised somehow, I tried taking the drive out, and doing the same thing with the lid outside of the player. With the drive out, the player works fine, and doesn't do anythng out of the ordinary no matter where you put the case lid. It's only when it's within the case that the problem occurs.

I've now shelved the whole idea, and I'll just have to listen to my car rattle until I can get another drive but....

Could this be anything to do with the previous drive's failure? Are older drives that much different, and hence more prone to interference from something that's not an issue with later drives? Am I safe putting a new drive in? And, having read an old post on the board that suggested magnetism shouldn't be an issue with laptop drives, what's likely to be causing this to happen?

More than a little confused!

Dominic