Insufficient power on USB port causes clicking sound on USB External Drive

On a Saturday night, after happily and proudly connecting my Verbatim USB 3.0 External Drive I was shocked to hear a clicking and fearful noise. I thought the drive has failed. The drive is 1 TB (2.5 inch hard disk). I had to copy some important files from the External drive to my Laptop.

I switched to another USB port and guess what... my drive worked correctly J

The real culprit was one of the USB ports on my laptop. (Oh My DOG, this USB port is a real B*TCH !!)

“Clicking Noise does not absolutely mean that the external drive has failed.”

The USB port on my laptop is not faulty – a USB mouse connected on this port works correctly.

I did some research to investigate this issue. Other users got similar problem

“Low voltage to a hard-drive can mimic all manner of failures.”

So, insufficient power from a USB port on a laptop or pc can cause clicking noises on an usb external drive.

My drive is safe. I can copy my data from it. Long live my drive J