The XYL didn't fry your machine, you did. A common mistake is overlooking the power settings, I have mine set to when the power goes off the computer stays off until I start it manually. That came in handy recently when the maintenance guys decided to test the genset over and over and over ad infinitum for days on end. When the power went off that was it for the computer, then when they stopped firkin around I had to run chkdsk /r on both drives to clean up the mess they made.

Now to Lord Of The Flies, a bath will fix that. (;->) Seriously, Seagate is an excellent HDD, I have 2 in here, a 1TB primary (a bit of a mistake, that's WAY overkill) and a 4TB secondary data drive (good choice). Unfortunately even USB 3 runs at a snail's pace for backup, if you're backing a lot of data you're looking at a whole day devoted to it. There's a much faster way, first you need to install a bay for a removable HDD (pictured)bay for removable HDD.JPG and select a drive with sufficient capacity to go in it. Next you need a suitable software suite, if you're running Windblows Active @ Disk Image is just the ticket, if you're a Linux man you'll have to find the equivalent to compress and store entire drives, AND create a boot stick (a small USB thumb drive will do). This most effective sort of backup calls for running outside the OS and any AV/AM scans that hang a mill stone around the neck of transferring data.