Hi

Recently I bought two Seagate Expansions 1.5TB External Desktop USB 2.0 Hard Drives  (ST315005EXD101-RK) one is working fine but the other is producing loud clicking sounds.

I'm using them on a Mac with OS 10.5.7 and they are formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

I've been having a look around the knowledge base etc here to see if there is an obvious solution.

I'm guessing I'll have to get the one that is clicking replaced which is a drag.

Is there anything I should try before I arrange to send it back to retailer?

Thank you. 

p a t r i c k

I know how you feel.

I bought a 1.5tb Expansion external HDD which was delivered on Thursday 13th August 09. I put some films on it to watch via the usb on my tv and after 1hr 20mins it started to make a loud clicking sound and the film would freeze. I thought maybe the film file was iffy as I hadn't watched it before so I tried another and the same thing happened. Film froze, click, click, click, film plays for about 3 seconds then click, click, click. 

I am currently backing the contents back up to one of my computers which is taking an absolute age because guess what......it keeps bloody clicking and clicking and clicking!!!

Needless to say the drive will be going back and I will not be buying another Seagate product.....Ever!

I was a first time customer, never again. Sorry Seagate, but if your going to churn crud like this out then you won't be in business for long. 

Western Digital is my next choice.

Hi Simate

I did send that 1.5 TB Expansions drive back to Seagate. To their credit they replaced it very quickly.

However...

I've found that both of my Expansion drives will periodically make the clicking sound. I only use them for back up, I never play anything on them, so I am keeping them.

I will certainly not buy another though. They are very cheap but I would not recommend them to anyone that wanted reliable use.

For the future I will be sticking with LaCie drives which I have used for years with no trouble (apart from having getting some psu's replaced). 

p a t r i c k

i am having the same problem with this drive, was trying to watch a divx file off the hard drive connected to WD media player and it just starts to stall and starts clicking, i emailed the technical dept at seagate and they said "it is indicated of drive failure and to backup the contents and get a replacement drive" ......that doesnt really help since other people are experiencing the same problem with a brand new drive!

maybe the technical dept could have said whether they actually want to address the issue by looking at making a firmware update??? or that there is actually an issue with this drive???

i think i'll have to return it to pc world but there idiots in there and tell me there's nothing wrong with it!!!!

Seagate should withdraw the sale of these drives, yes it would cost them, but it's going to cost them more by losing customers in the long term. I for one will never buy another Seagate product in my life. Yes hard drives can go wrong but not that quickly and not on this scale.

PC World are usually ok, they were very challenging  years ago when returning goods but they seem to have gotten the grasp of consumer rights since then. Producing a read error can be tricky if it's intermittent. They will either just say no problem and change it, if not then they need to copy a few TB of data to it to replicate the error or you could take a video and show them.

It took mine almost 3 hours to copy 49 TB off it due to the constant clicking. I formatted it afterwards and tried it again but it was still the same hence it being returned. 

Seagate, you really need to be taking this problem seriously as your 1.5TB externals are a major problem. Do you even care?

Hi

I bought this drive few days ago. I backup all my info on this hard disk... and it's begun clicking >:-(

After computer restarting  it'skeep on clicking, also when BIOS loading.

Yesterday i tried full defragmentation, and it's doesn't clicking now... knock on wood

I don't know, may be it's will crash in future... today i backup my info to another hard drive

If anybody have this problem - try to defragmentate Your seagate.

You shouldn't have to defrag a brand spanking new drive!The clicking WILL return at some point, copy 10 gigs to it as a test and see if it's still ok then or not. Either way I don't trust Seagate products now.

Formatting it a more sure option which I did but it didn't help.

My Western Digital Mybook came today, 2 days early too.