My external Hard Drive's making loud clicking noises

[veronica]

It's fairly new. It's a Fantoum 250 GB. Advice?

Thanks in advance.

[efc]

Noise usually means that it will fail soon. I would make a back-up then download and run the test utility from the appropriate drive manufacturer. If the utility reports problems, you can arrange a warranty exchange on the same site that the utility came from.

The external drive may create a different exchange procedure. You may have to go through whoever assembled the item.

Just a not. All drives emit clicking noises when the read-write heads move. This noise would not generally be described as loud clicking. We usually don't hear that noise when the drive is inside the computer case. The test utility should provide some insight into the drives health.

[phishhead]

I think EFC has you on the right track :)

[veronica]

Thank you both.

This is the 1st time I ever heard that loud clicking noise.

There is no test utility from the manufacturer.

My PC was not doing anything when my Fantoum made the noises.

[rik]

Is the drive still working? As both have stated above, once you hear that it's time to make a backup if possible, test the drive (if possible), and replace it. Typically the clicking is the read\write head moving, attempting to move, or it is stuck.

[efc]

Drive utilities:

Seagate & Maxtor - http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

Western Digital - http://support.wdc.com/download/

[veronica]

The drive is still working.

Drive utilities:

Seagate & Maxtor - http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

Western Digital - http://support.wdc.com/download/It's not any of these brands. It's Fantoum Brand. the above things are brand & model specific. is there freeware or trailware to test the drive?

Thank you all for replying.

[rik]

Some test applications work on other brand drives as well. I have had luck specifically with Western Digitals being able to check other brand drives too. It isn't the preferred method because each vendor is different but if you have no other choice...

Bottom line is that you need to backup that data and check with the vendor for a replacement.

[efc]

That external drive is undoubtedly fabricated with one of the major brand hard drives. You can determine which one by running Belarc Advisor a utility that has been mentioned here at TZ many times. Download Belarc here - http://www.majorgeeks.com/Belarc_Advisor_d1385.html

Though these utilities may not be needed with this problem, I mentioned them because they are important tools for every computer user to have in their library.

[veronica]

I right clicked on my External Hard Drive [F:]. I pressed

Properties and checked the boxes that said check the

volume for errors and fix them. Is that what caused all the

data on it to disapear?

Thank you all for replying.

[rik]

no. That would not cause data loss.

[veronica]

That's what I already did. :eek: Can I recover the lost data?

Thanks for replying.

[efc]

There may be little hope. The one thing that might work is running a program named Spinrite. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

There are many reports of drives being brought back to life with Spinrite. It cost $89, which might be considered expensive unless you have valuable data on an ailing hard drive.