Beeping Noises from the Drive

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi all,

I’ve had my WD My Passport drive for a good 4-ish years now. It’s been a very good drive and I’m surprised that it has lasted so long!

About maybe 2-3 years ago (so maybe 1 year into ownership of the drive), it began to beep occasionally whenever it would be plugged in. It would beep and click as if something is stuck and would not show up on the computer. Thinking that the drive is dead, in a fit of rage I picked the drive up. Upon picking it up, the drive began to work again and everything was good! I put the drive back down gently and accessed my data.

Now, 3 years later, the drive still does this. Whenever the drive begins to beep, I very carefully pick up the drive and tilt it slowly until it works. The drive will then be fine for a while and then will start beeping again, sometimes correcting itself and sometimes requiring another gentle tilt.

I have no truly vital information on the drive anymore, so I’m not in any hurry to replace the drive (seeing how I’ve kept it for years with this issue). My question is what is actually going on here? What is wrong? Am I just lucky that nothing truly terrible has happened yet?

Thanks in advance for your reply!

2

have you tried another USB cable … in case there is and intermittant fault with the one you’re using ?

also try giving the USB socket on the Passport a wiggle … it could be dry jointed (bad solder connection)

this happened to be on a brand new WD Elements eg. drive would connect to pc, gave the usb lead at the socket a wiggle and all of a sudden it worked.  (but, i returned it the next day at the retail shop i bought it from)

beeping usually means the drive is not getting enough power … try the above (use a different cable etc)