http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=517487&in_page_id=1770

I have not had experiences to this extreme, but I DID have a computer that used to fail right before I had course work deadlines...it did it regularly ( should I say it failed without fail?)It always had to get a new hard drive...I finally got well tired of it and just replaced it, and the new one was much more considerate of deadlines...

Good excuse for not doing things

why not just have two computers? and backup important data from time to time.

As an undergraduate I had almost finished an essay (night before)and at about 2am my computer (a second hand laptop) crashed. It had to be totally reformated. So about 3am I started again...

I handed it in on time and got a decent grade, but it would never work that way with PhD work.