Worried about my Digital Rebel

[ECohen]

I am wondering if some of the more experienced folks on this forum have any reassurances or advice for me. A couple of weeks ago my 4 month old Digital Rebel 300d broke while I was taking some pictures with an exteral ProMaster 7500DX flash. Hopefully the flash had nothing to do with it, hopefully it "just broke" but that's what I am asking about here. I was snapping off some pictures rapidly, and then suddenly I started getting "error 99"...from there on, I would only get "black" pictures and anytime I pressed the shutter an Error 99 would appear. I sent the camera in to be repaired and it came back with a note saying the replaced the shutter unit.

So I am wondering what folks think: would there be anything I might have done wrong that could cause the shutter unit to break? Could the non-Canon external flash have anything to do with it? I am generally pretty careful with the camera as far as its care.

Thank you.

[RichardtheSane]

Electronics and mechanical stuff do just fail.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it

[Jon]

If the ProMaster flash has a trigger voltage of over 6 V, it will kill the shutter over time. To guatrd against that, either get a Wein Safe-Sync or replace the flash with a known safe one (like Canon's EX line or the Sigma 500 model).

[Curtis N]

I have the same Promaster flash. It's made for that camera. Don't worry about it.