These are 5400 rpm hard drives that stopped working with the sound of Janet Jackson’s 1989 hit song “Rhythm Nation”. Interestingly, the issue was confirmed by Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen, and the company itself assigned the vulnerability the official CVE identifier, which indicates the accuracy of the descriptions.

What is known about the problem

The problem was first discovered by a “major computer manufacturer”, whom Raymond Chen did not name in his article. As it turned out, the song can affect not only the device on which it is played, but also neighboring computers, even computers from other manufacturers.

The description of the problem does not specify specific models and manufacturers, but it is noted that it is typical for it. 5400 rpm units shipped around 2005. The probability of anyone still using them today is extremely small, because most of them, most likely, have already “died a natural death”.

The unnamed manufacturer managed to fix the problem by adding a special audio filter that detects and removes frequencies that cause distortion during audio playback.

Video clip for Janet Jackson’s song “Rhythm Nation”: video