Infuriating heat-indued HD failure

[Ritchard]

Edit: subject line Frustrating not infuriating, and Induced rather than indued

I hope someone can toss me a lifeline here. I have a 40GB Apple TV that has just eaten its second Hard drive, due, I can only suspect, to excess heat. The symptoms are that the unit is first unresponsive to the remote in standby mode. If you unplug the unit to reset it, it will not boot, you must let it cool for 15 mins first. After cooling and successful booting, the unit will run fine for an hour or so, but after that hour or so watching a movie, it will again become unresponsive to the remote, and the only way to deal with it is to unplug it again. The prior drive - replaced 3 months ago - went though this same sequence of symptoms until the unit would not boot at all, even after cooling.

I don't want to keep replacing drives, is there a solution? I hate to give up on the unit, I love what it can do.

What about booting from the external USB drive? Is this a good long-term solution?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

 

[skye12]

Is your unit in a place where its getting some air circulation? How warm is it
typically in the house? Is it next to another item that produces heat?

Sounds like bad luck otherwise.

 

[Ritchard]

I have moved it our away from everything else, and it sits on a little stand to allow airflow underneath. It gets pretty warm, but not crazy.