Fix the "Click Of Death" on a zip drive.

I recently stumbled upon a patch of USB ZIP drives, with the infamous click of death. After alot of searching it was obvious that this was what it says on the tin "Death". There was no solution to the problem and the Iomega support is well, designed to keep you out of it.

So, what is a man to do?

Well, not give up that is for certain. So I searched more, and behold I did actually find a helpfull article on the subject.

Read it here:
http://www.siber-sonic.com/mac/Zip250fix.html

Ok, so I figure that there might be some hope and pick the first one from the pile. This is a 100mb USB zip drive, that has the repeating long term click sound thing going on. I swiftly (well not so swiftly, these things are bastards to get open without breaking something) open her up. What I see is not exactly what was descriped in the above article. However it did point me to the right direction.

On my broken drive it was the top reader head that was slightly bent upwards. I corrected this problem by very gently bending it back in to position. Put the thing back together and PRESTO it works like new again.

It seems that this problem is largely based on something around that area getting bent. And thus causing the reader heads to "click" while trying to get into the hole in the discs. And it also seems some times the problem can be easily fixed aswell.

I haven't done this to my 250mb USB zip drive yet. Mainly because it has a metal casing around that area, which the 100mb drive did not have. Allowing me a easier and faster access to try fix on it.

So dig out that old busted drive, open it up and have look if you can bend it back to shape

A word of advice for anyone trying to do this. Make sure you know what you are doing and how you are doing it. Also do understand that bending back a piece of bent plastic or metal will always weaken it a tad more. Do it on your own risk and don't get mad if you have a reader head stuck inside your favorite zip disk afterwards.

Hopefully this was helpfull to anyone still using these things.

Actually, it is extremely easy to open a zip drive if you know how without marring the finish at all. You need to find a flat piece of plastic that is about 2.5cm long and 1cm think. This will be used to release the plastic tab inside the drive that is holding the top cover in place. Do not use a screwdriver, as they are generally too thick and will marr the case finish.

Grab the top of the zip drive with one hand and squeeze it together, while simultaneously pushing the plastic piece into the unit on the front left side into the little slot. The piece inside holding the top in place will pop back and the top will lift up at that corner. Do the same thing again at the front and back tabs on the right side of the drive, always squeezing the top when you do each tab. There is no tab on the rear left side. Voila - the top pops right off and you never made even a mark.

When you are ready to replace the top, position it correctly and just push down gently on it - those internal tabs will pop back into place, one two three.

As for you fixing the click-o-death, well, time will decide that one. I hope you really did fix it but in my experience, there is no fix for that problem and it will come back. But maybe I did it wrong!

Keep us posted!

You did it wrong? I highly doubt that

Yeah I found the tiny holes after a while too. As I pointed out in the initial post, it is not a sure shot way of fixing anything and it may well end up beeing a disaster in the end. But from reading on the subject it seemed so utterly hopeless to do anything about it, and then actually fixing it as easy as that. I felt I had to share.

What was bent and how badly it was bent, will ofcourse wary from case to case. Sometimes it might not be possible to do anything about it.

The drive has been working flawlessly for 2 weeks now, time will tell tho. It may very well be that the strain of bending on the reader head has weakened it too much to be of any long term use. we will see, if it dies I will inform everyone of it's demize.

I never got them to work more than a few days before they clicked again. Two weeks? Sounds like you did a good job on it.

ok, this feels like it could provide some valuable info.

First of, did you try this on a external USB device, and in that case what type? I have yet to peak inside of the 250MB drive due to the aluminium casing it has. But I would imagine it's the same as the 100mb drives. I have not opened a internal drive yet, mainly because all I have come across still work just fine. The problem seems to be most common on the external ones anyway.


What exactly did you fix on your drives? The reader head or the plastic pins?

Did you pay attention on the tension of the tiny wire running to the reader head (incase that was what you were fidlig with).

^^That's why I said not to use one - they would be too thick and will almost always marr the case. What I use is a broken off plastic tab from inside a Zip drive case - it works very well and fits into the cutout perfectly.

Sabotage, I believe the reason you were successful is that you found a specific thing to fix - the bent head. In my experience, the bad drives will start making a multiple click when you insert a disk. One click is all a healthy zip drive should make - if yours makes more than one click, it usually indicates a problem - either now or coming soon. Anyhow, in these cases, you look inside but you don't really see anything "fixable". No obvious bent head or anything else - the drive has just started having trouble aligning the head to the guide track and it will start clicking as it retries. I've read people offering various fixes but none of them ever fixed the drive for good - as I mentioned, it might work for a few days or even a week, but then it would start the clicking again. And some drives that are clicking like that will damage any Zip disks that are inserted, so it is risky to even try them after they start that.

I certainly won't claim to be a Zip drive expert but I have had a good bit of experience with opening them up and poking around in there. Many times I've done things like swapped the insides of a working drive to a prettier case for selling. I asked Iomega once about the possibility of fixing those clicking Zip drives and I was told by a tech that they don't even try to fix them when they are returned like that - they just put them in a pile to be stripped for useable parts and send out a new drive.

If you are successful at fixing multiple drives, you might try to make a little business of it - buy bad Zip drives and refurbish them. There is still a strong Zip drive market and many people still use them and swear by them (not at them, like I always did).

scsiforsamplers.com wrote:I never got them to work more than a few days before they clicked again.

+1

Well... ok... the Zip250 I "fixed" lasted a week then went back COD.

I know this is an old thread, but for anyone who may be interested...my 100mb Zip drive had contracted "the click of death" a couple years ago and it was completely dead. It wouldn't do anything. One if my boys brought over a Zip drive that he had at home, but it was not compatible with my 2000 classic. On a whim, I decided to try his A/C adapter with my "dead" drive and it worked fine after that. I've been using it for 2 years since. My click of death was indeed caused by a failed A/C adapter. If you have an old dead drive kicking around, try it with the adapter from your new drive...you may be surprised.

I would say that suggesting anyone continue using a zip drive in 2013 is a false economy, it will only end in tears. Upgrade to a card reader and be done with it once and for all. Unless of course, you like the idea of losing your beats...