Odd clicking noises with external hard drive

My Iomega 1 TB hd has been doing well for me. Just today though I have been hearing a clicking noise every so often. In the past the clicking noise only happened when I first powered on the drive. I suppose the clicking noise is the read/write head moving between the rest position and an active position over the platters. Is this a sign of a failing drive?

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DevilWAH

well it can be,
WD raptors and they are re-nound for there clicking while in use.

I would suggest backing up the data just to be safe. There is a well know problem called the click of death. where the head can't read the data and the arm flicks back and forth over the drive

CompuTron99

Is it possible for you to remove the drive from the case and run diagnostics with it plugged into a computer? I had a 500GB Maxtor do that as well. I installed the drive into a computer and clicking stopped. I found a replacement AC adapter and it worked fine.

exampasser

CompuTron99 wrote: »

Is it possible for you to remove the drive from the case and run diagnostics with it plugged into a computer? I had a 500GB Maxtor do that as well. I installed the drive into a computer and clicking stopped. I found a replacement AC adapter and it worked fine.

Thanks for the help guys.

I have thought about doing that and reading the drive's SMART data, but I'm worried about voiding the warranty (don't know if Amazon inspects them to see if they been removed from the case).

If the problem is with the power supply, I have no way of knowing for sure, as my desktop is old and has no SATA ports, and although I got an eSATA port on my laptop I still need the adapter.

Well the first thing I'll do is take your suggestion and contact Iomega to get them to send me a new adapter.

exampasser

Just now when I decided to compress a set of VMware files it became a constant chatter and it hanged at 5 seconds until compression complete.

I just contacted CS and they are sending me a new ac adapter. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that its just a power supply issue.