This month, R.E. Kramer of Hoboken, N.J., wrote in with this following letter. In the letter, Mr. Kramer suggests doing a Yahoo! search for "Click Of Death." I did so, and found some surprising information regarding Iomega, its products and consumer concerns. Apparently, some people have had problems with their Zip drives constantly clicking themselves into oblivion. The problem occurs naturally when the Zip accesses its alignment signal and makes a fairly loud 'click' as the mechanism swings into action. But if the Zip can't find that signal and becomes lost it can get 'confused', and will re-try and thus click repeatedly until turned off. Unfortunately, this often means the Zip will destroy all the data on the Zip disk along the way. Since Mr. Kramer took the time to write to us, I decided to present it here for you all to read for informational purposes.

In fairness, I also contacted Iomega for a reply, which you will find on this page after Mr. Kramer's letter.

Dear My Mac Magazine,

Do you folks have the brass to do an expose' on the hand that feeds you?

I doubt it but I will continue anyway. Iomega has foisted a seriously flawed peripheral on the computer using public. They call it Zip but a more suitable name would be Zap-your stuff is gone.

Have you seen how pervasive the Click of Death or Click Death has become? A simple Yahoo search for Iomega Zip will return with a surprise if you have not investigated this issue before. Is it not curious that Iomega does not even acknowledge the problem on their Web site? Is it not curious that Iomega removes references/complaints about the problem on their AOL boards?

Simply put, if I can do so, the heads in a Zip will reset (click) repeatedly and ruin the disk that it happens on. Subsequent use of that disk in a drive that has not had the Click of Death will somehow infect that drive with the problem and disks used in that drive. The problem may or may not manifest itself immediately, on the original drive and any subsequently used drives, but eventually all the disks that you use will eventually become unreadable and unformatable.

Yeah, yeah, we know that Iomega will replace the disks. All you have to do get an RMA number and they will replace bad disks. What about all the data lost? As you know data recovery services are expensive and for most unaffordable.

The idea behind the technology is great, but the execution of it by the Iomega Corporation is seriously flawed. The quality of their products is questionable at best and inferior to other solutions that are available. Their support personnel are uninformed (or forced to act so) and probably programmed to support the company line, if the drive is out of warranty you are out of luck (see below). They do have their jobs to consider! Iomega's use of proprietary technology eliminated the immediate remedies that are available to Mac users for storage media, read Disk First Aid, Norton Disk Doctor, Norton Speed Disk, etc.

Cheap storage for the short run is one thing but these problems should lead you to urge buyers to avoid this company's products like a plague; yes, the Jaz has serious problems too! They have tried to hide all these, or rationalize them away by saying that when you sell millions of a product that a few problems will slip through, yeah right! Anybody want to buy a bridge built by Iomega?

Not just the rantings of a disgruntled customer, check into it and be enlightened!

R.E. Kramer

Iomega Responds...

Hi Tim

I am attaching Iomega's response with reference to the letter from Mr. Kramer of Hoboken, NJ which you included in your email.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for letting Iomega respond.

Wendy Foster

Like all manufacturers of technology products, Iomega Corporation receives a small percentage of customer inquiries covering a variety of concerns. In fact, our rates of complaint calls and Zip returns are below industry norms. Furthermore, we presently offer as standard a one year limited warranty on all Zip drives and a lifetime limited warranty on Zip disks.

Recently, a number of customers have called our technical support describing a "clicking" sound emanating from their Zip drive. This can be a symptom of a variety of problems ­ dirt, improper disk insertion, extreme heat or cold - and is common to other kinds of drive products in general. We encourage our customers to closely follow the instructions provided in every Zip drive welcome pack to ensure correct day-to-day handling of the product.

Iomega is dedicated to providing its customers with the best possible service and the highest quality products. Critical to this is the continual evaluation of our engineering and product testing, plus a regular dialogue with our customers in order to understand any problems they might experience.

We urge customers experiencing problems to contact us directly via the following routes:

Email: eurosupport@iomega.com
Iomega website www.iomega.com
24 hour Automated Technical Support: +353-1-8075-050
24 hour Automated FaxBack service +353-1-8075-060
Personal support Faxline: +353-1-8075-075
Bulletin Board (for drivers/software download)
+353-1-8075-080 (Ireland)
+49-2957-792990 (Germany)

Turboline Technical Support Numbers
(These calls do incur a toll but receive priority in our call queuing system)
Austria +353-1-8075-132
Portugal +353-1-8075-142
Belgium +353-1-8075-137
Spain +353-1-8075-141
Denmark +353-1-8075-145
Switzerland +353-1-8075-131 (German)
France +353-1-8075-136
Switzerland +353-1-8075-138 (French)
Finland +353-1-8075-148
Switzerland +353-1-8075-144 (Italian)
Germany +353-1-8075-130
Sweden +353-1-8075-147
Greece +353-1-8075-149
South Africa +353-1-8075-134
Ireland +353-1-8075-135
UK +353-1-8075-133
Italy +353-1-8075-143
Poland +353-1-8075-182
Luxembourg +353-1-8075-139
Russia +353-1-8075-190
Netherlands +353-1-8075-140
International +353-1-8075-170
Norway +353-1-8075-146
Freephone Technical Support Numbers