FreeAgent Products

[NPastrikos]

Hi all,

I have a FreeAgent Desk 1TB and in just a week started making some weird clicking noises (or else click of death)

with dramatic effects on its performance as well. 

I tried  seatools, scandisk and other diagnostics but that annoying noise blew my head off.

Well, It would be nice to share my solution with everyone.

Solution

Step#1 Power Options (Optional)

1. Open your power options and change the plan of the profiole you use. (Control Panel -> Power Options)

2. Go the advanced power settings(there is a link at the bottom left)

3.  Reach the Usb settings -> USB selective suspend setting and disable both options or at least the 'plugged in' (value pick 'Disabled')

4. Verify the status of your USB Root Hum  (Through the device manager - See below Step#2) that both options in the Power Management properties are unchecked.

Step#2 (Very Important)

1. Open your device manager

2.Expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers

3.1. If you know the hub which your disk is plugged go directly to the specific USB Hub and  change the Power Management properties and make sure both options are disabled.

OR

3.2.Change the Power Management properties for all the USB Root Hub devices to off. (REPEAT: Both options should be disabled. Unchecked )

Apply the changes - Unplug the disk and plug it back in. And good Luck

Since then I am stretching my disk as much as I can  (11 hours must be at the time Im posting this). No clicking noise, absolutely silent and good performance. (Optimized for Best Performance. I hope you know how to do it)

Hope it Helped. 

Good luck everyone (with your life sucking and mind blowing gadget!!!)

Nikos.

 PS Be aware that in many cases the clicking noise has to do with the power consumption rather than a mechanical flaw. Depends on how many days you try to make it work while counting the clicks.

[AlanM · Accepted solution]

Thank you for posting this!

[cerberus435]

I have a FreeAgent 1.5TB running on Windows 7. Recently, my external's sectors became unreadable and started making the clicking noises after a very sluggish power-up from sleep mode. After reformatting the HDD, I disabled sleep mode on the APM. This solved the corrupting sectors problem, but the noises still persisted.

However, after disabling "LED Lights" on the Drive Manager, the noises disappeared and the HDD is running normally again.

[Mantua]

I've read alot of comments on clicking noise - has anyone recevied a response or fix from Seagate?

[NPastrikos]

So far I haven't received any official response and I doubt if I will ever receive any.

I am afraid my first workaround was not enough.Not even for me.

However try some of the following ideas. So far my disk looks to perform well.

1. Place it horizontally rather than vertically. Not sure if it is Important.

2. Make sure there is no any magnetic source close to the disk such Speakers, magnetized metalic object etc. Keep them away.

3. Connect the usb cable but disconnect the power cable from the disk.

Try connecting slowly the power cable by pushing gently the power connector until the the drive turns on. You dont need to instert the whole connector into the disk power slot. (Sorry for my English. Hope I still make sense) pay attention if you can still hear any clicking noise.

I doubt that it is a disk issue. Sounds more like a power issue to me.

But this is how I resolved my clicking noises.

Good luck,

Nikos

[Seppo]

None of the above fixed my issue, to my amazement it was solved by placing the hard drive on a soft buffer (a soft cover book) and turning the hard drive on it's back. Been working without issue now for about 2 months. I put up with the clicking for nearly 2 years before I discovered this fix.