The click of death is a problem in IOmega Zip and Jazz drives, although it seems to be more common in Zip drives. Its been a subject of a lot of Internet writings and rumors. If you hear frequent clicking from your drive during reading and writing, you need to take just a little time to learn about this problem. And even if your drive seems to be behaving normally, be aware that the click of death may be a late sign of the problem.
You'll quickly find that when talking about the click of death problem, there are no precise, hard and fast rules. But if you consistently hear a long series of clicking noises from your IOmega drive when writing to, reading from, or when logging onto your drive, you may have the click of death.
The clicking sound you hear is actually the drive's heads retracting from the disk and reinserting the heads back into the disk. A click is normal when you first insert a disk into the drive, or when you use the disk after the drive went to sleep. However, multiple clicks when reading or writing a disk means that somehow the drive couldn't get the data, so it retracted and reinserted the heads to try again. Occasional multiple clicks may be perfectly normal, but frequent long series of clicks are worth attention.
The click of death starts with damage to the IOmega drive's hardware. The damage is physical, electrical, or mechanical. As a result of this damage, the drive can no longer consistently and precisely access disks. The drives then cause damage to the actual cartridges, damage that is physical and permanent.
Usually, a disk used with a bad drive will start exhibiting symptoms of the click of death. The user then tries to access the disk with another drive, and hears more clicks. The user concludes the condition is contageous. This may not be true. Since the data cartridge is damaged, a perfectly good drive will need to click repeatedly to access the drive. That is, since the disk is damaged, a good drive may need to seek the disk multiple times. Experts say that a damaged disk is not likely to damage a good drive except in a rare instance. If a bad drive's head snags on the actual data media, this will physically destroy both the media and the drive itself. (The drive's motor spins very fast. For example, a Zip drive spins at about 2,941 revolutions per minute, whereas a floppy drive spins at about 300 RPM.) If the mangled cartridge (the exterior looks normal because a shutter is over the media) is inserted into a good drive, and the good drive touches the mangled media, that drive will immediately be physically destroyed too. There have been horror stories of serial killer disks that destroy multiple drives. Note that this is rare, however. But be aware of the possibility.
Some people have bought drives that were dead on purchase. There are many people who question IOmega's quality control at manufacture. There is a sense among people in the know that newer drives have more problems than older ones. Of course, its virtually impossible to come to concrete conclusions. What is certain is that 1) a lot of people have this problem, and 2) a lot of IOmega users don't know about the problem.
Unfortunately, the clicks of death may be a late symptom of a drive problem. So its important to monitor your drive for this problem. Get Steve Gibson's Trouble In Paradise (TIP) program. This free program will test your drive and cartridges. Then it will display an analysis of the results. See below for a link for TIP.
Since this is a hardware problem, no software can fix it. If your drive really has the click of death, it should be replaced. Stop using the bad drive because it will damage disks.
If you suspect you have a damaged disk, but it is still readable, copy the contents to a hard drive. If the disk is unusable, and you still want to try to salvage your data, don't put the disk in a bad or suspect drive. Put it in a known good drive and run a data recovery program. Disks that have been slightly damaged can still be used. Gibson's TIP program can diagnose the disk, and the drive may be able to move data from the damaged areas to a good part of the disk, and mark the bad areas so data will no longer be stored on that part of the disk.
Some IOmega customers had complained about the company's response, or lack thereof, to the click of death problem. In fact, there is at least one class action suit underway against IOmega. Companies do not like to admit they have this many defective products. But the drives aren't supposed to fail like this, and its certainly not the customer's fault. So David Hellier, general manager of IOmega's Zip aftermarket business, announced on live TV, "If our customers have a problem specific to this issue, whether it's in or out of warranty, we're going to take care of and replace the product if necessary." This should include disks damaged by the afflicted drive.
As a result of Hellier's comments, people have reported success on out of warranty drives being replaced at no charge.
This document was written as an overview. Much more in-depth information has been written about the subject. The first place you should go for more information is Steve Gibson's Click Death pages. There, you'll find loads of material on what the problem is, and how to resolve it. You can also see pictures of the guts of a zip drive. Definitely download TIP, its a 50k download that runs out of the box under 32-bit Windows (no install). It will inform you of the state of your drive and disks.
Click here for information on the class action lawsuit.
IOmega's statement on clicking zip drives.
All IOmega zip or jazz drive users should definitely be aware of this problem. And make no mistake, it is serious. In its support document, IOmega says in part:
When you insert a Zip® disk into your Zip drive, the drive heads will click to acquire the Zip disk media. This sound is normal. However, if a disk is inserted into the drive and the heads make a continual clicking noise, this sound may indicate a problem. Drives that make a continual clicking noise should not be used. Please contact Iomega® ...<address>Page last updated August 28, 2000</address>