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From: Ouch on 7 Apr 2008 05:13
The other day, I bought an external 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive. It
made a few clicking noises when writing data, so after some research on
internet, I decided I would return it. So I purchased from another store a
750 gig Seagate FreeAgent drive. Now this drive does exactly the same thing,
so I'm most reluctant to return this one because I know that Seagate is a
very good brand and that all hard drives have to make some operating noises.
A year ago, a friend bought a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive, and it makes
no clicking noises at all when you write to it, so that's why I thought
something might be wrong with mine.

The Seagate drives come with a 5-year limited warranty, so you can't do much
better than that. I am using the drive mainly for backing up home movie
holiday captures, so it won't be in continuous daily use like some drives
are. Has anyone else experienced clicking noises on external hard drives? Do
such noises really indicate that something is wrong, or is the hard drive
likely to operate satisfactorily for many years even with these intermittent
clicking noises? Is there any software that I can run that will check out
whether there is anything wrong with the drive? I have the feeling that
there's not much point in swapping the drive again as all of them are likely
to do the same! Thanks for your help.




From: M.I.5� on 7 Apr 2008 05:45

"Ouch" <Ouch(a)ygothere.org> wrote in message news:47f9e5ba$1(a)clear.net.nz...
> The other day, I bought an external 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive. It
> made a few clicking noises when writing data, so after some research on
> internet, I decided I would return it. So I purchased from another store a
> 750 gig Seagate FreeAgent drive. Now this drive does exactly the same
> thing, so I'm most reluctant to return this one because I know that
> Seagate is a very good brand and that all hard drives have to make some
> operating noises. A year ago, a friend bought a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent
> drive, and it makes no clicking noises at all when you write to it, so
> that's why I thought something might be wrong with mine.
>
> The Seagate drives come with a 5-year limited warranty, so you can't do
> much better than that. I am using the drive mainly for backing up home
> movie holiday captures, so it won't be in continuous daily use like some
> drives are. Has anyone else experienced clicking noises on external hard
> drives? Do such noises really indicate that something is wrong, or is the
> hard drive likely to operate satisfactorily for many years even with these
> intermittent clicking noises? Is there any software that I can run that
> will check out whether there is anything wrong with the drive? I have the
> feeling that there's not much point in swapping the drive again as all of
> them are likely to do the same! Thanks for your help.
>

Noises while working are not uncommon. Some drives can be configured to
make less noise than normal (drives supplied for video recorder use are
often supplied configured this way).


From: Charlie Hoffpauir on 7 Apr 2008 08:51
On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:13:21 +1200, "Ouch" <Ouch(a)ygothere.org> wrote:

>The other day, I bought an external 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive. It
>made a few clicking noises when writing data, so after some research on
>internet, I decided I would return it. So I purchased from another store a
>750 gig Seagate FreeAgent drive. Now this drive does exactly the same thing,
>so I'm most reluctant to return this one because I know that Seagate is a
>very good brand and that all hard drives have to make some operating noises.
>A year ago, a friend bought a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive, and it makes
>no clicking noises at all when you write to it, so that's why I thought
>something might be wrong with mine.
>
>The Seagate drives come with a 5-year limited warranty, so you can't do much
>better than that. I am using the drive mainly for backing up home movie
>holiday captures, so it won't be in continuous daily use like some drives
>are. Has anyone else experienced clicking noises on external hard drives? Do
>such noises really indicate that something is wrong, or is the hard drive
>likely to operate satisfactorily for many years even with these intermittent
>clicking noises? Is there any software that I can run that will check out
>whether there is anything wrong with the drive? I have the feeling that
>there's not much point in swapping the drive again as all of them are likely
>to do the same! Thanks for your help.
>
>
>
Not on external drives (I have several, two FreeAgent Pro drives on
DVRs and several smaller drives used intermittantly for computer
backups), but I have had a few internal drives develop clicking
noises. In every case, I eventually had problems with losing data on
those drives.

Incidentally, the two FreeAgent Pro drives (750 GB each) run 24-7, but
I've only had one for about a month and the other less than a week....
so there's not much experience to go on there. Still, since there is
NO clicking noise, if I were you I'd contact Seagate and ask them....
either for a replacement, or and explanation.

In my case, a replacement after a year or even a month means I lose
all recorded programs.... not a good deal at all!

--
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/
From: Ouch on 8 Apr 2008 02:46

"Charlie Hoffpauir" <invalid(a)invalid.com> wrote in message
news:dq5kv3588062l4t17k11rltormqdj2nvrd(a)4ax.com...
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:13:21 +1200, "Ouch" <Ouch(a)ygothere.org> wrote:
>
>>The other day, I bought an external 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive. It
>>made a few clicking noises when writing data, so after some research on
>>internet, I decided I would return it. So I purchased from another store a
>>750 gig Seagate FreeAgent drive. Now this drive does exactly the same
>>thing,
>>so I'm most reluctant to return this one because I know that Seagate is a
>>very good brand and that all hard drives have to make some operating
>>noises.
>>A year ago, a friend bought a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive, and it
>>makes
>>no clicking noises at all when you write to it, so that's why I thought
>>something might be wrong with mine.
>>
>>The Seagate drives come with a 5-year limited warranty, so you can't do
>>much
>>better than that. I am using the drive mainly for backing up home movie
>>holiday captures, so it won't be in continuous daily use like some drives
>>are. Has anyone else experienced clicking noises on external hard drives?
>>Do
>>such noises really indicate that something is wrong, or is the hard drive
>>likely to operate satisfactorily for many years even with these
>>intermittent
>>clicking noises? Is there any software that I can run that will check out
>>whether there is anything wrong with the drive? I have the feeling that
>>there's not much point in swapping the drive again as all of them are
>>likely
>>to do the same! Thanks for your help.
>>
>>
>>
> Not on external drives (I have several, two FreeAgent Pro drives on
> DVRs and several smaller drives used intermittantly for computer
> backups), but I have had a few internal drives develop clicking
> noises. In every case, I eventually had problems with losing data on
> those drives.
>
> Incidentally, the two FreeAgent Pro drives (750 GB each) run 24-7, but
> I've only had one for about a month and the other less than a week....
> so there's not much experience to go on there. Still, since there is
> NO clicking noise, if I were you I'd contact Seagate and ask them....
> either for a replacement, or and explanation.
>
> In my case, a replacement after a year or even a month means I lose
> all recorded programs.... not a good deal at all!
>
> --
> Charlie Hoffpauir
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Thanks for your replies. Yes, I agree Charlie, I will try to get an
assurance from the manufacturer that all is well, despite the intermittent
clicking noises. I think it's important to have another copy of all
important data, so I'll do the second copies on dual layer DVDs. I think
that, even when hard drives fail, there's a fairly good chance of recovering
the data, but despite the cost, a second copy of the data is important.

I found one explanation about clicking noises on hard drives here:

http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080303204940AAtSAPc

It says here that this problem occurs when the rocker arm that reads all the
information on the disk gets stuck. Apparently there is no real solution for
this, so the hard drive will eventually fail. Is this a reasonable
explanation?

From: Dave Taylor on 8 Apr 2008 02:47
"Ouch" <Ouch(a)ygothere.org> wrote in news:47f9e5ba$1(a)clear.net.nz:

> Thanks for your help.

Check on Seagate's web site , maybe their seatools supports the usb drive?

Anyways, does it click when it is idle, or in the middle of when you are
actively writing a large 2 gig file to it? My usb drive has a sleep mode
and that is a click of the heads parking and the platters stopping.
My drive is not the same as yours. I have an Western Digital.
I hope that helps.
--
Ciao, Dave
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