[p2detar]

Had a Quantum Fireball hard drive as a kid.

I was playing HoMM2 one day, saved a game and try to reload only to find out the my save file was nowhere to be found. It all went downhill from there: Files reported saved, but no longer there after reboot, other data inconsistencies. Norton Utilities for DOS didn't do anything to help and at the end my PC did not boot anymore.

It seemed like a problem with the spindles or the head. I wasn't quite sure as a kid. Desperate, I tried the only other option I could think of - dismounted the hdd and dropped it from several inches high. To my astonishment that did work and by repeating that procedure now and then, I was able to squeeze at least a month or two out of my Quantum before it finally gave up.