The next stage was done when I came home from the US. Problem is. I had this
thing shipped over and it didnt like it. I took the harddrive out and when I
shook it I heard a rattling noise. I put the drive in my main rig and powered
it up and it made an incredibly loud noise, it was unbearable but surprisngly
enough it still worked so at least I hadn't lost all my data! So I quickly ordered
a new hard drive, but needing 100gb and being on a low budget - I ordered an
ebuyer refurbished drive.
When the drive turned up, I was amazed to see it was a re-badged WD. I was
even more surprised to find it had exactly the same problems as the WD it was
supposed to be replacing. I find this quite alarming and wonder if WD drives
are very very susceptable to knocks, i.e even delivery is enough to damage them.
I find it even more alarming when Surlyjoe told me of several he has had arrive
in this condition. From this information alone i cannot conclude the WD drives
are a problem product, but I know for a fact that I won't use one again. Their
only saving grace (unlike IBM) is that when these drives take a crap, at least
the data is still recoverable!
So I put a 40gb drive in their and starting work on modding this thing up!
The first thing I did was take the button panel and fill in those annoying
lines that just don't suit the case. So I took some putty and then filed off
the excess. Unfortunetly, when painted the groves just didn't go away. So I
had to scrap the button panel and ended up making my own solution.
What I did was take a standard blanking plate and found two very small
push buttons from an old VCR I stripped when Iwas 10 years old. I drilled
two holes and then sprayed it in this rather nice metallic blue. This paint
was bought from a model shop becuase model shop paint sticks to plastic
better. I won't bore you with pictures of me spray painting and will instead
show you the outcome.
I took the LED's from the old button panel and put them on the side next
to the USB ports. I then using some Super Glue put the blanking plate into
place. You can just about make out the very small, almost stealth buttons!
