I just spent the last few hours transferring files for backup using 2 clip drives. You see, the external hard drives I have are LaCie, which are formatted for Mac. They are the ones I use for my video work. Upstairs, however, I have a Laptop with Windows 10 on it that I use for gaming. I record my game footage and save it on there. 

![20171105_021258.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTahmu6VKkTKRPCYZwKSMvrKLiheZanphimu55vJsS3pH/20171105_021258.jpg)

I am saving up for an external hard drive onto which to save my gameplay footage and to use as a back-up for everything Windows 10. Problem is, I don't have the funds yet. So, I *wasn't* in a hurry, however, when I came to the laptop this night, I heard strange sounds coming from it. It was like clicking and a bit of grinding inside. Now, there is the possibility that there is a virus, so I am running a scan, and it's also possible that it was something that was attached to the laptop, but it sounded like it was the laptop. I will be making additional tests, but I didn't want to take any chances and risk losing everything.

I'm starting to be full on space on my LaCie hard drives because I don't yet have the other one I'll be using for gameplay, so I've been temporarily storing some things on the Mac drives.  Thing is, a drive that is formatted for Mac, to be optimal for Mac, cannot be read by a Windows PC or laptop, it could damage the drive. So I used clip drives, yay! I had one that is around 16GB, which was useful for those 5 to 8 GB sized gaming files. I also had a smaller sized one, 4 GB, which I used to make transfers go faster, and put smaller things on it. Strangely enough, the 4GB one is the yellow bulky drive, the small dainty black one is the "bigger" one.

When each drive was full, I went downstairs, transferred the files to my LaCie drive, then came back upstairs and loaded more files onto it. So of course, it took a few good hours to get it all done. I couldn't transfer everything, obviously, I have folder that are over 30GB in size, but I transferred the main things (Docs, pics, vids, AMD driver stuff, etc.).

I hear no clicking sounds right now, I'm running a scan with AdAware. Frank is sleeping so I'll have him take a look at it with me tomorrow. I will be sure to transfer any new files from gaming every time I have them until further notice. It's something that worried me greatly when I heard it. If anything happens, I want to be prepared. At worst, this was a false alarm, maybe it was the external fan that was clicking. But I'm going to monitor the situation very closely. 

Once I have my new drive, I'll be able to load stuff on it right away. 

I'll take any suggestions though regarding the laptop. I don't know if an accumulation of dust can cause this to occur or what. It was as though the clicks were grinding together, something was working and having a bit of trouble, it seemed. If any of you own a crusher and use it to grind herbs or nuts, that's what it sounded like. With the odd click-click here and there, and then it stopped. Then 15 minutes later, there was a bit more, and then it stopped.  I haven't heard anything unusual since. It's also possible it was "working" after I closed it, I usually leave it to "ajar" and reboot when needed. Maybe it was waking up after being asleep.

I've also made room and deleted any unnecessary files, old gaming files that had already been transferred and such. There is still 50% of space, so I don't think that would be the cause of the issue.

Anyway, that's my eventful night lol