About six months ago, the hard drive that came with my RioCar went out (it was one of the IBM 10GB drives that seem to have been flaky) and was replaced under warranty. My player's out of warranty now and the replacement drive (another IBM Travelstar 10GB) died last night and I'm wondering if I was abusing it or if the drive was just bad.

I'd been having problems with the player the past few weeks when the weather was warm (the player would skip and/or stutter). I don't leave the player in the car, ever (I don't see how lots of docking and undocking could be harmful, but I'm willing to learn). A few weeks ago I added a second hard drive (IBM Travelstar 18GB) and it's been working fine. I do a lot of writing to and erasing from the players' hard drive(s): I drive a lot and like audio books, though, being a hard drive, I didn't think that this would be an issue.

I'm sure that the 10GB drive's problem was a hardware failure (drive clicking loudly on boot, disc not found), but I'm wondering if the problem was due to the drive being bad from the get-go, or if I've unwittingly abused it. Any input would be welcomed. Thanks,

Bob