Not if it was connected by a wire to the PC (USB or Ethernet), and the PC had a power spike problem.

Oh I see. Does the network (not a direct computer to empeg ethernet connection) count, too?

You mentioned it was an IBM drive. Did it have the standoffs? It could have been something as simple as that.

It was the original drive the unit came with and had the standoffs.

including a drive that was simply ready to fail and chose a moment of bad timing to do so.

From what you guys say and I can see here, this is more and more what it seems to be. Just a freak coincidence. I'm sure the extreme cobbelstone ride last weekend wasn't conducive to long HDD life either, even though there was no apparent immediate effect.