So I'm no longer a virgin to opening my Empeg ... My drive has been "clunking" at startup about 6 or 7 times for a while. Not too long ago I started getting Failed to Unmask IDE. I just checked the drive cable and the pins on the board, and they all LOOK ok ... Would cable or bad connection cause the drive to make this strange sound, or is this looking like a bad drive at this point?

ms

Clicking and clunking drives are a sure sign it's about to bite the dust... at least in my experience. Make sure you've got everything off the drive you want to keep.

What i want to know is what exactly causes the click of death?

What i want to know is what exactly causes the click of death?

Buy an Iomega Jaz drive and live the experience every day

You ain't heard the "click 'o' death" until you've seen a Jaz drive struggling with its data, litterally frightens the sh*t out of you (till you get used to it of course)

Cheers, Sim

The original click of death was with the Zip Drives... i must've sent back at least 5 of those things because of that issue.

If it does lock up before you save the data on it (I'd be ordering a new drive right now btw), first disable the spinning down of the drives in HiJack. Then, as you are applying power, give a smart WHACK to the side of the drive. That should get it going.

My failed drive was most likely a frozen bearing. Once it was spinning, it was fine (until it got too hot or spun down). I found I needed to get it spinning during bootup to have any access to it. I did the data extraction on a PC for the higher bus speeds.

Good luck!

Would cable or bad connection cause the drive to make this strange sound, or is this looking like a bad drive at this point?

I've heard of simple cabling issues causing the clicking, yes. It also can mean a bad drive, too.

Don't be afraid to take the cables off and squeeze them as described in the FAQ. Make sure to read through the drive upgrade guide before doing so, so that you know how to remove the glue without damaging the cables.

And if you don't have standoff washers yet, add them.

See if any of that fixes it first.

i can hear one of my drives from another room in the house

Could this be a bad sign

Depends - How big is your house

2 bedroom semi but the old laptop is currently looking very worried 30 gig hard disc and a dodgey keyboard.

Where did i put that screwdriver ?