could 750GB hard drive have been damaged after 50 continuous hours of 3-pass wiping

My Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750gb external USB hard drive that started

developing strange clicking/scratching/ticking/tapping metallic noises

after 3 weeks of use. It was near 80% capacity. (copied from all the

other computers in my house, as back-up)



Since it was still within the store's 30-day return period, I decided to

return it.



I had quite a bit of personal data on it, so I decided to do a simple

3-pass wiping before bringing the drive back to the store. No need

to do a 7-pass or even 35-pass(!), because the data wans't that

personal. Just didin't feel like having a strange looking at my family's

old photos and wedding videos, etc, etc...



So, I started the wiping process Friday night. The hard drive ran

nonstop... saturday, sunday.... When I woke up this morning,

the screen finally said "Finished" and it showed a total of nearly 50

hours from start to finish.



During the 2+ day, the hard drive was running nonstop and the

temperature was extremely hot. It got so hot that the paint on my

old desk developed a light brown spot... I couldn't even touch the

exterior of the drive with my bare hands. Can't imagine how hot it

was inside the external hard drive enclosure...



Could the hard drive have suffered some kind of damage after such

a long time of continuos operation? It was already returned to BestBuy

this afternoon and I got my $200 back in cash. I specifically told the

return guy that the drive was defective. I just hope they don't resell

it to someone again....

I wouldn't worry about cooking the drive since it was already on the way out by the description there of clicking sounds and other noises. A drive is supposed to run quiet showing the read/write heads were failing. Hopefully letting it run for 50hrs. actually removed everything before you returned it.

Try not to start two threads on the same problem however. You started a second one at would you return a dead hard drive to the store if your personal data is on it?