That's pretty reassuring, although just to clear things up, I am flying internationally to Pakistan, my hard drives are bare as well (and I have no laptop) and they aren't external drives (so they don't look like a standalone piece of equipment and hence are probably more suspicious).

I've flown internationally post-9/11 and I often get stopped for that secondary check (random my ...) and a least for some airlines I believe they add a number to my boarding pass so that it is in a seperate category that boards last. I just hope they realize a hard drive is a hard drive.