AFAIK the problem with these ZIP drives is the head gets ripped off by residue buildup, and that comes from degraded media that starts shedding the magnetic material coating. Louder operation is usually due to the friction between media and the head, could be just this particular head+floppy is more noisy, or it could be because of the early to mid stage buildup. So at the very least inspect the heads, make sure these are clean, if not then possibly a very gentle cleaning would be preferable to waiting for the head to "catch" and get ripped. Inspect the media too, surface should be clean and without any circular scratches. If it is less than perfect then reconsider using it, perhaps only to read what's on it and transfer to another, fresh media.