Your diagnosing sounds like you are doing all the right things. I did not like the mention of the "muted click noise" and that may well mean the drive is on its way out.

Let me try one more unlikely suggestion. Even though you can activate the drive and see files, I wonder if you are getting enough power. You mentioned two cables. Is this one of those drives with a "Y" USB cable? If so, I only found success using a powered USB hub on the short end of the cable. I could see the files but did not have enough juice to run them until I did that.


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