Hello All-
I first saw this thread back in June, and asked someone here at Maxtor to post an official reply, but I guess that did not happen. So I will try to explain the noise and the problem cause, but I can't give specific details, and please don't get me in trouble at my job by complaining to Maxtor.
First of all let me apologize on behalf of Maxtor to anyone that has this problem. There is only a "one-in-a-million" chance that this will occur. There are no tiny speakers. The sound that is heard is known as the "buzz routine" that is intended to unstick heads from the media. This can only happen under very rare conditions if power is removed or spiked abnormally. The firmware routine that tries to move the actuator and heads actually causes an audible sound. On your particular drives the routine fails because the frequencies are not quite right. Tapping or beating on the drive may also unstick the heads, but there's a chance that part of the media could get damaged.
Rest assured that 2 different fixes were implemented months ago and the issue should not happen again. It's not my job, but I will try to check at this site periodically to see if there are any other issues with Maxtor drives.
Rock On! BW