A maxtor you say.. Men, get your warranty, or receipt, and go get a new one! I had a maxtor, with the same sympthoms, and it did crashed totally after about 10 or 11 months.. First it started to make those small clicks, afer reading or writing data on it, it was something like: "wzwzwzwzzz(thiswzwzwz is when I accessed the disk) click, click, click". Then teh clicks sounds were more intensive (disk was very silent), that i could hear them even the case was closed. And finally the disk died, I couldn't do nothing, it was starting to spin, but no sound of heads moving, it wasn't even recognised by my computer. Guy at store service told me, that there was something wrong with the electro magnet heads servo, I did an additional pay and exchangged it for Segate Barracuda V and it rocks bout a 1,5 year for now . So, I don't want to scary you, but you should think about exchanging this, and getting new one, and not a Maxtor brand .