So, I got this. But I also know these things aren’t the most reliable and I am really paranoid about breaking it, and there’s some suspicious things.
First, it feels cheap, especially the USB port on the back feels like it wants to break off.
Second, and quite worrying, when I first got it, it was clicking and not reading disks. Slower when I held it with the opening towards the top, faster with opening towards bottom. I thought it was dead, when eventually after a few retries it started working. Now, this was faster clicking, especially fast shortly before it started working, so perhaps it was just stuck.
On the other hand, I found this: https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq2.htm
Most users who have lost their crucial data tell the same sad story of hearing “those clicks” some time ago “but then they went away and everything seemed okay for a while.”
Now, 2 of the disks also had some smaller issues. One had trouble loading. Formatting it seems to have fixed the issue. Maybe. I used fdisk so it left out the first 1MB.
The second loads fine, but doesn’t seem to like writing. It seems to do it in bursts, and it is audible. There’s also 2 sections where it produces a buzz, both on read and write.
Here’s an audio sample from continuous (one file) write to that disk:
https://files.catbox.moe/yo6g50.flac
Current ideas
Checking disks for damages by pulling back the metal cover and rotating the disk manually, looking for stuff like this: https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq4.htm or anything suspicious (the white cloth inside is too close and hairy for my liking).
Peeking into the drive to check for head damage and dirt.
Treating it like I treat running HDDs (do not unpower without parked heads, avoiding movement and vibrations), and generally being careful even when off (avoiding drops).
I wish I could see into the drive when it was clicking to see what exactly was happening, whether it was seek issue, or the head arm was just stuck (and not even entering the disk). It should have been functional before shipping. And also, I let it warm up for an hour, but there was some condensation after bringing it in on it, and I don’t know how it was doing inside, though I think it should have been okay after that much time on table.
But I guess you could also say these are always in the state of dying, and were since their manufacture. Welp, fingers crossed, all I can do.
Anyway, as for the problematic disk, Iomegaware’s full format manages to take care of it, but it’s far slower than writing the whole disk.
It also shows disk and “formatting” life percentage, whatever those actually mean. I couldn’t get Trouble in Paradise to work in either Windows XP or 2000, though I didn’t try on bare metal.