Weird HDD Behaviour and Clicking Sound !!!

[slashoholic]

Hi Folks,

I have an external HDD assembled using a 3.5" 1 TB SATA internal HDD and a casing. The unit was powered by the casing adapter and all worked fine until we had a power fluctuation and after that, the drive was not detected and kept creating clicking sounds.

Going through various suggestions posted on the net, I tried freezing, heating, tapping and everything else there was to do, but to no avail. The clicking continued and the drive would not be recognized.

To avoid fluctuations, I had removed the casing & adapter and had connected this HDD directly to an SMPS, but the clicking went on. However, as I connected another PATA external HDD to the molex connector of the SMPS, the first HDD's clicking came to a halt and the HDD came to life. All drives are now visible in Windows and I'm in the process of backing up the data.

Whenever the PATA HDD is disconnected from the SMPS, the SATA HDD gets disconnected and starts clicking again. This is the weirdest thing I've ever encountered and have no clue what's making this happen. Why is the presence of another HDD connected to the SMPS making the SATA HDD not work ??? Has anyone else come across a similar situation or have any solution ???

Thanks

 

[whitestar_999]

hdd electronics circuit is sensitive.just a guess but maybe the circuit got damaged in such a way that now to correctly function it needs a slightly different voltage/current than usual & whenever you connect another hdd such condition is satisfied.whatever the reason since it is working so don't push it & keep using it in a similar manner as long as it works.

 

[slashoholic]

Thanks for the response.

It seems that the SMPS was faulty. I concluded this from the fact that the clicking Sata HDD worked perfectly when attached to another SMPS. Anyways, I'm not relying on the HDD and a backup is in progress.

Apart from this, I had attached another PATA HDD to the faulty SMPS to check and after being detected, it stopped spinning after 5 seconds and has now completely stopped functioning even with another SMPS. The "Smooth" chip is getting overheated in this HDD and the motor seems lifeless. I guess i blew the smooth chip and am now stuck with a bricked HDD

 

[Naxal]

In one of my computer in office, every now and then PC refused to restart , there we have to open the side panel and give the HDD a good shake to start it up ..

Shake well before use..

lol..

 

[slashoholic]

Forums are full of instances where the drives were recovered using the shaking method. What the heck- might as well give that a shot too - lol