Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld ‘Editor’s Choice’, CNET ‘Very Good’ Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Low End Mac's Online Tech Journal

Click of Death

Dan Knight

Much of the following information has been distilled from a series of articles by Steve Gibson of SpinRite. Since these articles specifically address Click of Death (COD) tools in the Windows world, they provide excellent technical information but no Macintosh perspective. If you want to know more about COD, Gibson's articles are the first ones listed under Other Resources.

The Iomega Zip drive has practically replaced the floppy drive. Thanks to reasonable drive prices, disk prices, and disk capacity, Zip disks are being used for backup, archiving, and transporting projects too large for one or two floppy disks.

But today the Zip drives, and to a lesser but growing extent the Jaz drives, are also known for the Click of Death (COD), a problem that can result in completely unusable, unrecoverable disks.

The problem is named for the clicking sound that precedes disk death. A source tells me Iomega has known about the problem since at least August 1996.

The clicking itself is not the problem, only a symptom. Iomega's Zip and Jaz drives are designed to retract, clean, and recalibrate their heads when they sleep or have a problem reading a disk. Continued clicking is a symptom of an unreadable disk, usually one which has been damaged by a Zip or Jaz drive incorrectly writing to the disk. Too much clicking may actually damage or misalign the heads.

Although COD is usually caused by the drive, inserting a COD damaged disk into another drive will make it seem that the second drive is also afflicted with COD. This may not be the case: the second drive is clicking as it tries to read the COD damaged disk. They key is to isolate the drive causing the damage, then determine whether this was a one-time occurrence or an ongoing problem. And it is possible for a COD disk to damage a good drive, so never knowingly put a COD disk in any drive. (Disks can be damaged by being in the drive when the power goes out - a good argument for plugging Zip and Jaz drives into a UPS.)

You can visually tell if a disk is damaged by a frayed edge on the disk itself (not the hard case, but the media inside the case). Never put damaged media in a Zip drive.

COD can also be cause by strong magnetic fields or the lubricant on the disk decomposing, leaving deposits on the drive head, which magnetizes the heads and causes them to come together early, running into the edge of the disk medium itself.

Depending on the level of damage, it may be possible to recover a COD damaged disk. The first step, if the disk can be mounted, is to copy the data to your hard drive or a server. Following this, run a disk repair program such as Norton Utilities for Macintosh, which may be able to repair damaged files. After this, files should again be copied to another drive.

Then the disk should be reformatted in a known good drive. If format fails, send the disk back to Iomega (or whoever put their name on it) for warranty replacement.

Steve Gibson notes, "Since the true cause of Click Death is a physically, electrically, or mechanically defective Zip or Jaz drive, the only possible 'cure' is the replacement of that drive." In fact, as Gibson notes in How can I cure Click of Death?, David Hellier of Iomega states, "whether it's in or out of warranty, we're going to take care of and replace the product if necessary." (Be sure to mention Hellier if Iomega balks at replacement.)

If you buy a new Zip or Jaz drive, or have one replaced by Iomega, you should immediately test it to verify it is working properly before entrusting it with important files.

Iomega recommends you use Tools, select the icon with two drives (not two disks), and select Push to Diagnose to test your drive and media. I don't know what level of testing this performs, but if it fails, contact Iomega immediately.

We've been using Zip drives at work since April 1995, adding more as needed. I've had one at home since December 1995. All of these have worked reliably since the day we got them; none have experienced Click of Death. COD is not something most users can expect to see, but every Zip and Jaz user should be prepared for it. LEM

Other Resources

I'm looking for good Mac-specific COD pages. If you know of any, please email Dan Knight email me. Thanks!

Recent Online Tech Journal Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.