HDD Enclosure Problem?

Hi Gurus,

I have a WD 200 GB IDE HDD in a USB 2.0/Firewire Enclosure. I use it regularly to back up my valuable data. I've had this for less than a year.

A week ago it started to function strangely. After power up, connected to my pc, it'll "Break" (stop) irregularly when it is actively reading. Soon after I'm unable to retrive any files.

I figure the drive probably DIED. In furstration and desperation to recover my data, I dismember the enclosure and connected the drive directly to my PC's IDE interface. The drive seems to be working perfectly again.

What I wanted to ask you experienced users are:
Is my HDD really ok or is it only ok temporairly, and it's about to die soon?
Could the enclosure be the reason why the unit was mal-functioning?
What would you reccomnd in testing and isolating the problem?

PLEASE PLEASE try and give me some insight.


Thank you, Thank YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

Is it common for enclosures to fail before HDD?
It has happen to me once before and I assumed the HDD drive died.
Now I'll try to revive that as well.

I ran the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic on the HDD.
Passed the extended test 100%.

Does anyone know if external enclosures failure is common?