The clicking sound itself is nothing more than the sound of the heads being retracted from the cartridge into the drive, then immediately reinserted. This deliberate strategy is employed by the drive when it is having trouble locating, reading, or writing any of the cartridge's data. The clicking is just an audible indication of a drive that is having trouble accessing the data on a cartridge. So for example, if a cartridge that was clicking in one drive is inserted into another where it also clicks, this DOES NOT MEAN that this second drive has now been somehow infected by Click Death. Incidents of the Click of Death have been linked to bad external power supplies, loose power connectors, excessive magnetic oxide build-up on the drive's heads, magnetic and radio interference from nearby sources, media damage from excessive wear or mistreatment, and a seemingly endless array of internal electrical and mechanical problems from causes ranging from excessively rough handling of portable drives through defective original manufacturing.
Zip disks fail most often when they are over-used or misused.
The Zip disk should be used for backup purposes only. Don't carry your backup copy around with you. This way, you can get them over the Internet from home or most RIT's computer labs. There is a limit, or quota, on the amount of information you can keep in your account. Then when you are done working on that file, copy the new version back to your Zip disk.