Generally it's better to connect the bare metal drive to an internal SATA connection to run smartctl. If the short test results are good, run. The long test. There are versions of smartctl for various OSes but you can also boot from any optical or USB media that has smartctl on it or can be downloaded to it (e.g. I have done this with a Fedora livecd and then installed the tools.) Mark MARK H RICHER, MS CS NPS-NCR Digital Forensics Lab IT Manager Computer Science Department Naval Postgraduate School - National Capital Region (NCR) 900 N Glebe Rd, Rm<x-apple-data-detectors://21> 5-182, Arlington, VA 22203 571.858.3254<tel:571.858.3254> (o) 571.303.9498<tel:571.303.9498> (m)mhricher@xxxxxxx<mailto:mhricher@xxxxxxx> On Apr 6, 2014, at 14:39, "Chris Weisiger" <cweisiger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:cweisiger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: I'm posting from my phone, so I have no choice but to top post. I have run across an issue like this. I have noticed the drives make a clicking noise if they are in an enclosure. I have then taken them out and they were perfectly fine. I found that the controller card in the enclosure was bad and not the hard drive. So take the drives out and they might be absolutely fine. -----Original Message----- From: "Eddie O'Connor" <eoconnor25@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:eoconnor25@xxxxxxxxx>> Sent: 4/5/2014 1:41 PM To: "CentOS mailing list" <centos@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:centos@xxxxxxxxxx>> Subject: HDD Problem.... Ok so I have a 500GB WD "Blue Scorpion" HDD that I'm trying to access via USB, when I boot up my CentOS laptop the lights on the external USB casing light up...and I can hear the drive making noise, but after a few minutes I hear an abrupt "click" and the drive doesn't do anything. I can SEE it in the Disk Utility in CentOS,...I even tried to format it from there as well and the symptoms are still the same. The lights come on...it looks like its about to do something...and then the loud click and nothing happens. Can anyone volunteer some advice as to where I would look for troubleshooting this issue? I really am not interested in what's on it. I just want to re-format it and (possibly) use it for storage. I have tried using various toosl to try and wipe this drive but nothing seems to work...(SystemRescue CD....D.B.A.N.......PartImage....Hiram's BootCD....) Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks In Advance EGO II _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos