[bohdanz]

Hi there.

I've had the NewerTech external ministack (version 2) which suddenly started making clicking noises and no longer was recognized as an external drive.

I discovered tonight that if I turn on the hard drive power supply there is no clicking noise. But the minute I plugged in first a Firewire cable and later tried a USB one, the clicking began and the drive is not recognized.

Any idea on what this is or how to fix it?

[Veltliner]

A clicking noise from a hard drive indicates possible hard drive failure soon. Back everything up that's on that hard drive.

[analogika]

It sounds like the bridge in the enclosure, which passes on the power provided by the Firewire or USB cables to the hard drive itself, has a power supply problem.

This can happen due to component aging - capacitors no longer able to keep the board voltage up to snuff, etc.

The external power supply probably continues to work because it doesn't need to pass through the bridge, as it supplies the needed voltage directly.

If this is the case, the hard drive itself MAY be unaffected (yet), but power supply problems can easily result in catastrophic drive burnout, as well, while a failing bridge will probably result in data loss at some point.


Back up everything on that drive NOW.

[cspuryear]

Just following up on this thread because I was encountering my own "clicking" noise w/ my Western Digital My Book drive. My Mac stopped recognizing it, so I dismantled it. Bought a simple IDE/SATA -> USB adapter for $25 to test out the drive, and it was the enclosure/bridge and NOT the drive. I bought a Ministack (v2.5) to put my drive back into, so we'll see how that goes