Hard Drive Woes (of the past)

Ben's comment on my last posting reminded me of a few things that happened to hard drives back in University. Oh, and one that happened to a CD burner.
Dayton had a awesomely fast and reliable Yamaha CD burner. This was back in the day when Yamaha made the only IDE CD burners that you could rely on to consistently burn anything other than coasters. At some point when we were moving stuff in and out of residence, I was carrying an armload of stuff which I'd stupidly tossed the burner on top of. As I was walking down the hallway, approaching the jig in the hall where it zigzagged left, then right, the burner slid forwards off my pile of stuff. I tried to cushion it's fall by getting my foot under it, but mistimed it such that I ended up booting the drive down the hallway, right into the wall. It still worked after that, but was never quite the same.
Dayton did something similar to my 850 MB Maxtor hard drive sometime after that too, but I don't remember the details of how it happened. I do remember something else that happened to that Maxtor though. With my new computer, with a 6.4 GB and 4.3 GB hard drive, the Maxtor had become sort of an extra. I would hook it up when I needed it, and (usually) unhook it when I was done. I didn't feel like mounting it properly in the case every time, so I usually left it sitting on the top of the case. As it happens, the way the cables went, the easiest way to place it was sitting with the circuit board side of it facing up. One day, I bumped a cup of coffee that was on the edge of my desk, and it tipped over, spilling coffee all over the circuit board of that drive, which was on my computer right beside the desk. I reached for the power switch on the back of the computer and turned it off as fast as I could. After sopping up the coffee, and dabbing at the drive with a damp cloth, I let it dry for a while. After that, it worked as well as ever for another few years.
So remember boys and girls, no, your hard drive is not thirsty.