[pompanoguy]

My Maxtor Passport 120 gig hard drive has a problem, causing me to have a problem. I hear a "clicking" sound, the light lights up and when I put it into any USB slot on my Acer 9300 I hear a "bing" but the computer ( Windows Vista ) does not recognize the HD. I then put it into my PC machine running Windows XP with the same result. Any help will be appreciated, even if it is bad news. Thanks

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Sounds like the maxtor drive is going bad. Any clicking sounds is usually the heads banging on their stops. If it is still under warranty i would see if i could get it replaced as soon as possible.

This is my opinion only.

I really think external HD's are only good for short term data storage at best. CD's and DVD's are so cheap now that even short term data storage is possible in a home computer enviroment. 650 MB CD's for 10-20¢, and 4.3 gig DVD for 20-40¢ each. Hard drives can't touch that and the disks are permanent records if you take care of them. I have 100's of CD's stored simply because i usually backup the same data 2 or 3 times. This came from loaning a friend a CD, with some downloaded programs, a long time ago and he destroyed the CD somehow. The only real loss was my Cool Edit 96 program,and this was a couple of years after they no longer produced it, so i ended up buying the cool edit 2000 program. Right then and there i decided to always have some kind of backup on everything.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Sounds like the maxtor drive is going bad. Any clicking sounds is usually the heads banging on their stops. If it is still under warranty i would see if i could get it replaced as soon as possible.

This is my opinion only.

I really think external HD's are only good for short term data storage at best. CD's and DVD's are so cheap now that even short term data storage is possible in a home computer enviroment. 650 MB CD's for 10-20¢, and 4.3 gig DVD for 20-40¢ each. Hard drives can't touch that and the disks are permanent records if you take care of them. I have 100's of CD's stored simply because i usually backup the same data 2 or 3 times. This came from loaning a friend a CD, with some downloaded programs, a long time ago and he destroyed the CD somehow. The only real loss was my Cool Edit 96 program,and this was a couple of years after they no longer produced it, so i ended up buying the cool edit 2000 program. Right then and there i decided to always have some kind of backup on everything.

SRX660

[pip22]

Not a good sign if if doesn't work on either XP or Vista on two different PCs. And the 'clicking' sound you mention is also not normal. Thirdly, it's a 'Maxtor' and they have always been more prone to early failure than other brands. If you can remove the actual hard disk from the enclosure, fit it inside one of the PCs as a second drive and see if it can be read from/written to. If it doesn't work like that either, I fear it's days may be numbered.

You can download a free diagnostic utility called 'HD Tune' which will tell you if the drive is failing/failed. But it won't be able to test drives connected via USB, so you'll need to remove the disk and fit it internally.
http://www.hdtune.com/

SRX660 - right with you there, my friend. I wish more people had the good sense to keep backups but still we see posts from people frantic with worry 'cos they've lost all their files. Today it's easier than ever to make backups in so many ways --- I just can't figure out why so many people still leave it to chance.

Edited by pip22, 12 December 2007 - 01:05 PM.