Click of death is caused by media being torn and/or obstructions on the media which cause damage to the read/write head. The 'Click' is actually the head retracting to its home position in an attempt to self-clean it, then it tries to read again. Normally, this will happen if the media has 'soft errors' or 'hard errors' and in those situations, that operation is normal. If the media is indeed damaged (physically) the head will become damaged, and unable to read the media at all -- hence the repetitive clicking sounds heard during ClickOfDeath. If that disk with damaged media is then inserted into another drive (for diagnosing the problem or seeing if a different drive is able to read), the good head will run across this damaged area of the media, damaging the fragile read/write head of the good drive, rendering it unable to read as well.
I've used both 100MB and 250MB drives in the past, and have had very few issues. I routinely check the media of the disk (especially the edge of the media) so the head doesnt catch the edge of the media and cause damage to the drive head. That being said, there was a drive called the Avatar Shark which i *love*. These were actually 250MB disks with hard platters on them (like hard drives) and these were really good. Problem is they folded before a Mac and SCSI version of the drive was created. britt On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Chuck Bush <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 9/25/09 7:11 AM, "chris knight" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The infamous click-of- > > death is caused when you share zips between PCs and Macs (I had too > > many experiences with this in the 90s). I would avoid this, unless you > > have plenty of zips lying around. > > No one know "how it is caused," it just happens. I have lost several drives > and many disks to the Click of Death, but you have to work with what you > have. Never had any of the disks or drives I lost had any association with > PCs of any flavor. > > The one disk I use to go between the PC and my Mac has been fine for a very > long time, with no hint of CoD (Knock on Zip Plastic). > > Chuck > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
