Almost a month ago I plugged a brand new USB thumbdrive into my desktop and it didn't work. "Strange, " I thought, "it was working this morning at home...". However, a few weeks ago, I plugged in another known-to-be-working thumbdrive into my desktop and it didn't work either. And both drives don't work anymore. My Indian colleague came over, plugged his India brand thumbdrive into the port and it didn't work too - but it continue to work on his computer. So I thought I was just unlucky to have 2 lousy thumbdrives in a row. The only lucky thing is, I didn't lose critical data in both incidents.

Revelation came a week ago when I plugged in my usb fan for a faster cool down after lunch. The fan was spinning, but there was no wind. The fan was spinning pretty fast... in the opposite direction! No wonder my thumbdrives died!!!

As a result, I'm now a bit paranoid when I have to plug something into an unfamiliar USB port - I have to know its a known-to-be-working port. Its funny because my paranoia apparently spreaded to my french colleague who had to plug his minty fresh external harddisk into his USB port.. without a fan to test.

Damn, how did that India brand USB continue to survive?