can a 5tb portable hdd make a click noise if pc is low spec?

truewraith

truewraith

truewraith

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i put my new 5tb wd hdd on my low spec old machine just to transfer some stuff and after a few hours the drive had turned off or crashed and then i turned it back on and it wouldn't load up and was clicking so i thought it must be broke

i tried it again today and same, so i put it into my main pc and it works fine so im well confused lol!

can low spec machine machine cause that maybe with low end psu or soemthing?
 
Yes, but some USB ports are able to supply more power than a base spec USB port does ( which your older machine may have ). As Colin mentioned, a lot of early USB HDD's had 2 USB cables attached to them, one was used for data+power, and the second cable plugged into second USB port for additional power to get the HDD spinning.

It may be the case that your older PC's ports are not supplying enough power . . . where as the modern one is. Are there any other ports on the old PC you can try ?

Failing that, one solution may be to use a powered USB hub inbetween the old PC and the external drive. The powered USB hub will supply the necessary power for the external unit.
 
It could simply be differences with power saving, USB suspend modes, etc. especially on older systems it can be quite glitchy and won't recognise and/or properly initialise some USB devices after resuming from sleep and/or they have gone into internal power saving, etc. etc.
 
well thanks very much for the info, i will try some other ports but theres only 4 on this old desktop pc but i will consider a hub seeing as i didnt know about the power issue which is why i suspected it but i thought i would ask if that was a possibility. the HDD in speaking seams to work fine on my with ive been testing for days just not on the other pc. Im so glad the drive wasnt broke :)
 
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