Yesterday, my drive started making soft clicking noises, like something was accessing or indexing the drive or like something's trying to read or write to the drive, but it can't. When I tried to click on a folder, it took a few seconds for the folder to open, which is unusual. When I tried to delete 18 empty folders, it took about 30 minutes!

I then ran a chkdisk (from a DOS window) and it took over 2 hours!
There were a lot of problems- not with the drive, but while running the chkdsk. When I ran the command, the window sat for about 10 minutes, then it gave me the message asking if I wanted to dismount the drive to fix it. I said Yes, and then the window sat for another 20 minutes. While it sat, the drive was still making soft clicking noises.
Then, chkdsk started running. It got through step 1 of 3, then worked through step 2 of 3, but then stopped at 68% of "scanning index processes". It sat there for another 45 minutes (and the drive was making the same clicking sound). Then chkdsk started up again. It found about 75 "orphaned files" which it put into a new file (though I couldn't find where it put these files). Then chkdsk stopped again, then started up again, then stopped, then started, until it finally finished.

I then turned off and unplugged the drive, plugged into into a different extension cord, then turned it on.
It then worked fine for the rest of the night! I was able to make some large product zip files and even upload them to TurboSquid without any problems.

But the drive is giving me the same problems today. I tried uploading the same product zip files to The3DStudio, but the uploader stopped and the drive started making the same soft clicking noises. I was able to open folders and copy sales images from the external drive to my C drive, but I couldn't copy the product zip files: first Windows Explorer sat (with the "waiting" mouse pointer), then it said "Not Responding"... all while making the same soft clicking noises.

I tried plugging the drive into a different USB port, but the same thing happened: I couldn't copy the zip files and the drive made the clicking sound. I then tried another USB cable and the same thing happened again: the zip file didn't copy and Windows Explorer said "Not Responding".

Does anyone have any good ideas about what might be going on?

Use this version of CHkdsk:-

LINK

When asked about dismouting use Yes.

Let it do it's bit.

After doing it, do a defrag.

I had a prob like that as well and this solved it.

All the best.

LROG

Try the recommended post.  However, any clicking sound from a hard drive not heard before could be the beginning of a hardware failure.  Now, it could be a race to transfer content to a new drive before total meltdown.

When I did my defrag the MFT was messed up, after the defrag everything has been fine, no click.

I think the head reader was confused about where to go!!! LOL.

All the bet.

LROG

Thanks for the suggestions.

Here's the latest update: I still have my old desktop computer running Windows XP, so I decided to plug the drive into it to see what would happen. (I switched to a Windows 7, 64 bit laptop back in 2011.) The other difference is that I use a firewire connection to my desktop, but a USB 2 to connect to the laptop.

Everything seems to work fine! I was able to copy some large files from the drive to another external backup drive without any problems. I ran chkdsk and it ran at normal speed, though a tad slow since my desktop computer is slower.

Now I'm suspecting there's something wrong with the USB port on the hard drive. It's odd that I've been using it for a few years, but it's only started making noises yesterday.

But, I'll try running a defrag and then plugging it back into my laptop to see what happenes. Luckily, my backup drive has enough space if I need to copy the files to it.

And what's the difference between the chkdsk in the link you posted and Windows' chkdsk?

I don't know why but the normal chkdsk didn't want to unmount my external drive for some reason.

This did it with no probs.

All the best.

LROG

Quote - Try the recommended post.  However, any clicking sound from a hard drive not heard before could be the beginning of a hardware failure.  Now, it could be a race to transfer content to a new drive before total meltdown.

I concur; a new drive is cheaper than the hassle of replacing the data (at least in the US; it may be different on your side of the Pond).  Usually the enclosures will take a standard bare drive...

Oh, clicking not good. Thank goodness hard drives are relatively cheap these days ;).

Good luck

Laurie

I ran a defrag and it stopped at 48% and the drive started making the clicking/ spinning noise again.

I'm pretty sure the drive is a goner. :(

Yes, I know drives are cheap, but I use this drive for product zip files, downloaded videos, Poser scene files, and Photoshop versions of my artwork.

I've started copying my data to my back up drive, but there are some files that won't copy: the drive just spins and if I wait long enough, I get an error saying Windows can't read from the drive. It's a little strange to see which files I'm losing: an episode of Doctor Who that I downloaded (but the other 12 episodes were fine), some older zip files of sales images, and a 3ds product zip file.

I'm able to copy other video files and large zip files just fine, so I'm not sure if the bad files were too fragmented or if they just happened to be on the drive's bad sectors.

A friend gave me this tip, as odd as it sounds:

Place the drive in two plastic ziploc bags and place in the freezer until cold. Hook up to the computer and get some data. When it stops working correctly, rinse and repeat ;).

Sometimes the drive gets hot and won't work correctly anymore, but will work when it's cold. Of course this will only work until the drive finally gives up the ghost and croaks. If you really wanna get ur data, you might try it ;).

Laurie

That soft clicking from a USB-powered drive usually means that it isn't getting enough power. The drive takes the most power when it's spinning up, and if the supply drops at that time the process will fail or be unreliable. Possible causes of this could be a faulty cable, or faulty ports on the computer or drive. Your success on Firewire bears this out. Amazingly, standard USB connectors are rated only for 1500 insertion cycles - but to be fair, portable drives weren't conceived when the USB 1.0 specification was being written. Depending on the quality of the connectors used, you may find that the gold plating will wear off the contacts quite quickly.

I suspect the USB connector on my portable drive is on the way out - I have to be very careful not to joj it while it's working. However I also know that the ports on my laptop are wearing out. The gold is almost gone. I've sorted my problems for now by plugging in via a powered hub. This puts the drive away from the work area, so I'm less likely to knock it; and it also supplies the drive power from the hub rather than the laptop, so the worn contacts are less of a problem.

Laurie's cooling trick is valid, and I've used it in the past as a last resort. However I'm not certain it applies in your case. It's really for when the drive itself is faulty, and I think you may have connection issues. The problem is that if your connection breaks while a file is being accessed, it can be corrupted, and even if the connection is fixed the file will stay broken.

There is the hope, if EnglishBob is correct, that the drive itself can be extricated from it's old case and placed into a new.  And depending on type and connectors, the drive could be inserted into those gaming adaptors.

Coincidentally, my WD drive threw a delayed write failure error today, and I took it apart just to see what was inside. (Spot the engineer!) It's nothing more than a standard 2.5inch SATA drive with a little USB adaptor board mounted on the end, so it could be put into a drive dock of some sort after the adaptor was unplugged.

All the external drives I've looked inside have had a similar arrangement - there always seems to be a standard drive in there, with ATA or SATA connection according to vintage.

You can usually get a USB multi-adaptor from Maplin / Radio Shack (substitute local hobby electronics store)... or ebay... that has a usb cable / plug at one end and a little dongle with an array of diferent IDE / SATA etc. connectors on the other end... and, importantly for some drives, power...

...probably about $10 or so...

...can be pretty useful for drive recovery in my experience. Depending on what level the fault is at.

EDIT: Like this example

Thanks for the advice. I'm still in the process of copying files to another drive, so I don't think I'll need to freeze anything.

I'm not able to copy some files and I get an error message saying "I/O error", but I'm able to copy most of the stuff that I need. I'll probably have to re-download some files, but it's not looking too bad.

The only pain is when I try to copy files within folders withing folders: Explorer just freezes instead of giving an I/O error and I have unplug the drive. If I go down a subfolder and copy the files, Windows give me the I/O error and I'm able to skip the file and keep copying.

Attached Link: http://www.2brightsparks.com/welcome/backup/freeware.html

If Windows Explorer is being uncharacteristically non-performant, you could try accessing the disk using a bootable Linux, e.g. Ubuntu Live CD...

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd/

It can be "lighter of touch" in terms of it's I/O demands...

Cheers ;-)

I always use TeraCopy to copy stuff now. I hate the way Windoze does it: if you hit a bad file, it stops and you're screwed ;). TeraCopy will skip the file and continue to copy the others. It also tells you which files it copied successfully and which ones it didn't. And it's freeware :D

Laurie