Unfortunately it seems it is not just laptops and their batteries that have a tendency to burst into flames. After several reports about laptop batteries more or less exploding and being recalled they have over at DragonSteelMods had a more unusual component catch on fire. It’s a 200GB Maxtor SATA harddrive that has simply started to burn, while it was installed inside the computer, right in front of the writer. Exactly what the cause of the accident was is still uncertain, but the harddrive was only about one year old and had been working flawlessly up till this day. That didn’t stop it from sending out 10cm (4 inches) long flames from the circuit though.
At DragonSteelMods they’ve published lots of pictures of the harddrive which has received quite a beating and some chips actually seem to have exploded. This is however an isolated event unlike the batteri reports but still shows what can happen if you’re really unlucky, or just careless.
