I have recently gone through a bad run of losing 2 hard drives and having issues with my desktop allowing externals to function properly too. I have just bought another drive and no later tha 3 months it has started making a click noise every minute or so.
What the hell is going on with my machine and why is it just killing off all of my drives!? D:
Any feedback on any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
That's often called the "Click of Death". It happens mostly on drives with bad sectors on the platters, or where the drive was dropped and knocked out of alignment. I've seen it mostly on Western Digital and Hitachi drives.
Unless your PC is extremely HOT inside, it's doubtful that the computer itself is causing the problem.
Heat Kills...... so when I install a hard drive inside a Desktop PC, I always install a two-fan cooler on the bottom of it.
That does make installation a bit trickier, but it's well worth the effort to have a drive that never gets above room temperature.
A 3.5" internal HD, with dual fan drive cooler attached, using 1/4" standoffs, to promote better air flow.
My own Main HD, with two-fan cooler, mounted in 5.25" drive bay, on spacers, for Max Cooling Air Flow. It never runs more than room temperature, even when hard working like on a scan or defrag.
If your failed drives have been either of those two aforementioned brands, don't buy that brand again.
It's not repairable, so get your data off of there and onto DVD's or Flash Drives as soon as possible.
I might even try a CLONE of that drive to a NEW Drive. Nothing to loose and everything to gain.
Good Luck, and do let us know how things work out for you.