Seagate Freeagent external 1.5 tb hard drive clicking noise

[kenmo]

Recently my Seagate Freeagent external usb 1.5 tb hard drive started to make a clicking noise even when I'm not accessing files on it...

I'm able to read and write files to it... I ran Seagate Tools on the drive both short & long generic tests and it passed...

I was going to RMA the drive on the Seagate website but it's asking for an error code from Seagate Tools....

Also via Seagate Tools I checked for a firmware update but apparently none was available...

Anyone else having this issue?

I got mixed posts from a google search. Some claim the drive is dying, others it's a noisy usb connector...

I did copy my files to an external Lacie 1tb (Hitachi) drive. The Seagate is used as a backup for my digital photos, 3D renderings and 2D digital paintings....

[freebird73717]

Clicking noise is usually always indicative of a drive getting ready to byte the dust.

[kenmo]

This bloke believes he fixed the clicking issue but not sure if that is indeed the problem....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK1pEVjReNA&feature=related

[lordsmurf]

I get that on a Seagate Firewire drive, but only after it's just been turned on and it's cold. In summer, or after it's been on for a while, no noise. I don't think the drive is going out. It happens on both of mine, actually. One eSATA, one Firewire. I think it's just a noisy drive model.

[turk690]

I wasn't aware that, depending on certain conditions, some seagate drives click as they go . I've always thought that when a hard drive starts clicking, that means it has given up the ghost, or very, very soon if not. If despite the clicking it still works, I'll consider myself lucky as I back up the important files from it. Then I'll toss it away.

[ranchhand]

Drives are so cheap now, why take the chance? My opinion is that no drive should ever make a click or rattle of any kind. Old -and I mean really old, like12-15 years- drives used to have noisy heads (Maxtor was notorious for this), but that was in the mechanical configuration of the head supports and arm and was normal, but that antiquated engineering passed out of existence decades ago.

[russkelp]

I had this same problem on a drive from the minute I plugged it in, it made the noise even when the drive wasn't transferring data or
being used. Very irritating and I could not trust the drive would not fail, so I stopped using it. Didn't take it back, and usually have no problem with Seagate drives.
Won't buy another Seagate drive for a while.

[kenmo]

That's what my drive is doing clicking every couple of seconds now even if it's not being used.... When I woke up this morning I walked past my computer room and heard the clicking noise (computer was left on overnight)....

[AlanHK]

That's what my drive is doing clicking every couple of seconds now even if it's not being used.... When I woke up this morning I walked past my computer room and heard the clicking noise (computer was left on overnight)....

Well, it is being used, just not by you, manually. Windows is indexing, or doing something else. Or maybe your PC has been recruited into a bot network and is sending out millions of spam messages. Whatever it is, the disk is being accessed by some program.

If you want a computer that really does nothing unless you're typing, install DOS.

[valvehead]

I suppose it depends on what sort of clicking sound it is. It may be harmless. However, if the drive was not making a clicking noise before, then you are right to be worried.

For the fun of it (or not ), here is a collection of sounds from failing hard drives. Hopefully yours isn't as bad as any of those.

[nic2k4]

I wasn't aware that, depending on certain conditions, some seagate drives click as they go . I've always thought that when a hard drive starts clicking, that means it has given up the ghost, or very, very soon if not. If despite the clicking it still works, I'll consider myself lucky as I back up the important files from it. Then I'll toss it away.

Some drives in external case are just noisy when they're being accessed, here it's more a drive that has been affected by heat. All drives are sensitive to heat, it makes the platter expand, a drive can compensate for it to keep the heads on the cylinder. When a drive gets to a certain temperature, the compensation is such that if something is written it might end up slightly off center on the cylinder. When what was written is part of what makes the drive boot (MBR), you get a loud repetitive clicking with the drive motor doing spin-ups and spin-downs. The drive is partly able to read its boot record, but has to do resets to retry. On a really bad drive this can go on until it warms up just enough. Running the manufacturer's diags will say there are partition inconsistencies and it will fix it, but sometimes it will say the drive is good. Running CHKDSK /f might be enough to fix it, but you may have to use the zero all function in the diags.

You get the same effect when the drive power is bad and it usually has nothing to do with the power supply. It's mostly due to cold solder joints on the power connector. Just re-soldering the power connector on the drive fixes it. The molex plugs can be at fault too. I had a WD drive acting up and just replaced the SATA power converter cable I was using. Sometimes it's something else in the drive and you're out of luck.

You can test whether a drive has software or hardware issues by un-plugging the data cable from the drive and starting the PC. Do not un-plug any cable while a PC is on. If it does the same thing, suspect hardware.

[Bjs]

Also remember that drive indexing services access drives even thou the operator isnt ... disable this service on the particular drive and reconfirm the symptoms .

This drive indexing service snagged quite a few hp's not long ago and drove a lot of people nuts with reports of what amounted to be constant "drive thrashing" type noise when not in use ... disabling the service seemed to be the cure.

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Clicking if not a drives health status issue could indicate a weak power supply ... for externals this could include an issue with the interface control board.

[nic2k4]

I always disable the indexing service, it's pretty much useless. Most of the time all it does is eat up ressources; it's only purpose is to speed up searches on your drive(s). Now just ask yourself how many times a day do you search your PC for a file? Most of the time the answer is not very often; we didn't need it with previous Windows.

[lordsmurf]

Some drives in external case are just noisy when they're being accessed, here it's more a drive that has been affected by heat. All drives are sensitive to heat, it makes the platter expand, a drive can compensate for it to keep the heads on the cylinder.

In my case, I think it was lack of heat. I've had these drives for about a year, and only in December-January, when I chose to save a few bucks on heating and just wear more clothes indoors, did I notice it. I'd forgotten about it until this post.