It started as a dark rumor, then built into a groundswell of gripe. Now, the truth is out: Thousands of Iomega's popular Zip drives have developed a fatal condition called the Click of Death (destined to replace the Clunking Caviar in your personal mythology). COD occurs when the drive's read head becomes misaligned, leaving it unable to find the Zip disk's first track. The result is multiple clicks as the read head mechanism reaches the end of its range. Not only are misaligned drives unusable, but they can wreck good Zip disks you insert into them. (Single clicks when you insert or eject a Zip disk into a drive are normal.)

Iomega reports that the problem affects fewer than 1 percent of the more than 12 million Zip drives it has sold. But that's still tens of thousands of drives. The good news: The company will replace defective Zip drives under the one-year limited warranty, or disks under the limited lifetime warranty. The bad news: If the problem shows up after a year, you're on your own. An Iomega spokesperson claims the problem will appear within the first year.

Iomega's Web site offers practical guidelines for diagnosing COD problems. If you think your Zip drive is clicking your disks and making them die, hide any disks containing valuable data and try reading another disk in the drive. If it works, the problem is probably with the first disk. If the drive clicks away on several disks, the trouble is likely with your drive. Call Iomega tech support at 888/446-6342, or fill out the return merchandise authorization request form at www.iomega.com/support/techs/zip/101.html.