I have a Phantom Drive external hard drive and recently it's been having trouble starting. When I start it I can here the disk at if it's starting to try to spin and then it clicks stopped. This happens pretty rapidly, about ever second. None of the noises are loud so hopefully it's not causing too much damage doing this. Then it gets a little farther and I can actually hear it spin in every click. And eventually it starts working normally, but the whole process takes a couple minutes and before it would work instantly. Is this a common problem that might have at least a fairly easy solution or am I going to need to go into more detail? Thanks.

common? I don't know.

easy solution? Absolutely!!--new drive.

Hard drives are sealed units and cannot be serviced except in a clean room. When something like this starts, the mechanical parts are at end of life and repair is really not practical.

Reminds me of a laptop I had many years ago. Every so often, the drive would not spin up. Eventually I discovered I could get it going by smacking it with my fist (before applying power). It went straight to the shop for a new drive.

Before it's too late...

If you have any thing on that drive you prize, now is the time to make a copy of it to something else. You can't know how long it's going to make strange noises and still be readable.

That's too bad. It's a 500GB hard drive and I really didn't want to have to pay for a new one, but I guess it's probably the best choice. Luckily they aren't very expensive any more. Thanks.