posted
I am curious about the "click of death" mentioned recently. I've been saving files to floppys and have recently been using an external 250 zip drive. What exactly happens with the zip drive. Should I get a RW CD instead? Thanks
-------------------- Rob Thomas 3410 Ketcham Ct Beautiful Springs FL 34134 Posts: 965 | From: Bonita Springs, Florida USA | Registered: Feb 2000
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I also found a link dated Sept 2002 that suggests the problem is now found on the MAC.
I think the original PC problem was related to disk formatting. I had a few disks that clicked and just reformatting them caused the problem to go away. I lost the data off one disk. After that, any disk that started to click was immediately backed up. Shortly thereafter, ROM burners got cheap and simple and we switched over to CD's. Haven't heard anybody talk about the click of death for a couple of years. Now people are talking about it again. Vic G
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
I copied a part of the info at Vic's link, as it sums up what I had been told by iomega 4 years ago when they authorized sending me a new drive & 12 new discs within 5 minutes of my mentioning the word "click"
quote: The source said the clicking sound is caused by the read/write head bumping against its movement stops--bumpers that keep the head within its intended range--while searching for and not finding track 0 on the Zip disk. When the "click of death" problem happens, the read/write head fails to find that track, which contains vital directory information, because the head has become misaligned.
The source said he also had encountered a related problem reported in newsgroups: a domino effect in which misaligned heads damage disks, which in turn misalign heads of other drives, which then damage more disks.
I was pretty impressed by the prompt service & never lost data. I currently have 250 meg zip drives for both my office computers & a 100 meg zip drive in my home office machine. I trust them ennough to use, but although I've never lost data on a zip, I did have one that I almost lost data, but a technician I took it to managed to salvage it.
Moral: use for transfering files & possibly for archiving if backed up!
posted
I agree with Doug, any type of floppy, Zip or otherwise is best used for transferring files. Although I have 7 year old Zip disks that still hold all the original information, I wouldn't trust them. Regular floppies fail all the time and are infamous for failing constantly.
I have heard Cd writing has it's problems, more often because of buying cheap media instead of a good name brand.
-------------------- Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Posts: 2787 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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I actually was hit by the "click of death". It was not pretty. I agree, now, that you should not depend on zip drives and disks for backup files, only use for transferring files. I recommend CD-writer and Rewriters.
The click of death, as the article explains, is the actual hardware (drive) which starts to find information, yet, all it does is "click,click,click" (kind of a grinding motion, if that makes sense). The problem is you lose all your information due to damage. I had to pay $200 and twelve hours of recovery to get only some of my customer files back to working order. I do not trust zip drives anymore.
Iomega says you can request a replacement drive for the bad drive, but to me, it was a huge hassle to fight with them. Iwas too busy trying keep up with what I had lost.
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5278 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I agree with Sandi...I also got "The click of death" and lost hundreds of files. I would NEVER trust Iomega again as they used all the excuses to evade responsibilty.
-------------------- Norman Biss aka KiwiNorm Living and working in one of the best countries on earth... Papamoa Beach, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand norman.biss@gmail.com Posts: 141 | From: Papamoa Beach, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
After reading that post last week, I had nightmares (literally) about losing my data. The next day out I went and bought a CD writer. I now sleep better.
-------------------- Lee Attewell Graffic Jam Auto Unit 3, 1731 Albany Highway, Kenwick Western Australia 6108 Posts: 102 | From: PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA | Registered: Oct 2001
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