But this also means that Iomega's users are COMPLETELY POWERLESS TO PREVENT SUCH LOSS of internal hardware function within their drives.

The more recently assembled and purchased Iomega drives seem to be less well built than the older drives which established the drive's solid reputation of quality and reliability.

This statement is supported by the fact that many recently purchased drives are reported to be dead upon purchase . . . or to die after very little use. We therefore encourage users of Iomega equipment to thoroughly test their new drives immediately after purchase (using our freeware "Trouble in Paradise" utility), and then to be very extra careful with the handling of their drives and cartridges. Don't drop them or treat them too casually. They seem to be far less sturdy internally then their exterior would lead people to assume.

Annoying as this advice may be, it's much easier to treat a drive gingerly (even if you correctly feel that it should have been better made) than to suffer the loss of your data and then fight with Iomega to get them to replace the prematurely dead unit.

So . . . since you can't really prevent the possibility of this problem, your best course of action is to check for it from time to time. If you do this you can probably prevent Click Death from taking any of your valuable data with it!