Anubis
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My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
Maybe I didn't notice it before but my primary HDD on my HP Pavillion notebook well, I hear a clicking sound coming from it. The secondary (also internal HDD) doesn't do this. That primary hard drive is barely 6 months old. It's a Seagate Momentus 320 GB 7200 rpm. Should I be concerned? Is this a symptom of imminent catastrophic drive failure? I had a couple of Hitachi Travelstars (250 GB, 7200 rpm) in there for almost two years before that and I don't remember hearing the clicking sound. Just to be safe I went into my power management settings and set the indexing down a notch from "performance".
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Middleman
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/26 11:35:41
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That's the sound of your drive reader slamming onto your drive platter. Laptops that have been jostled or met with a jarring experience are subject to this. Get a USB drive, backup now. The age of the drive is irrelevant.
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Jim Roseberry
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/26 12:14:43
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Yes, If the HD is 'knocking' as opposed to normal access noise, I'd make a backup immediately.
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Anubis
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 01:04:38
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Jim Roseberry
Yes, If the HD is 'knocking' as opposed to normal access noise, I'd make a backup immediately.
Well what is a normal access noise? It doesn't do it all the time. Just a random click every once in a while. I defragged it but I heard it once or twice since then.  Middleman, the only thing that i did was turn it upside down once... while it was on. But not in a jarring sort of way. Could that be the culprit? Ironically, two three years ago when it was new, I slipped on my stairwell and sent the thing tumbling to the ground. I ended up in the ER with a dislocated shoulder but my lappy was fine. WTF- are these Seagates that delicate?
post edited by Anubis - 2010/07/27 01:11:37
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Middleman
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 02:17:32
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The drives that I have had fail the most are Seagates.
I know a guy who was hit by a car while riding his motorcyle. He flew 50 feet in the air and landed on his back. He was wearing a backpack with his laptop in it and he walked away with a few scratches and one very flat laptop, shattered but it booted up.
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NoKey
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 03:25:44
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Anubis
Maybe I didn't notice it before but my primary HDD on my HP Pavillion notebook well, I hear a clicking sound coming from it. The secondary (also internal HDD) doesn't do this. That primary hard drive is barely 6 months old. It's a Seagate Momentus 320 GB 7200 rpm. Should I be concerned? Is this a symptom of imminent catastrophic drive failure? I had a couple of Hitachi Travelstars (250 GB, 7200 rpm) in there for almost two years before that and I don't remember hearing the clicking sound. Just to be safe I went into my power management settings and set the indexing down a notch from "performance".
Anubis, If you put the extra drive in the HP notebook, did you also put the special bracket that is required to mount it? I say this because without that bracket, the drive can loosen and make noises that can relate to bad plug-in contact. Also, if you did put the special bracket, still check to make sure the pluging of the drive is making well. If the noise is when you are running on just batteries, then old battery can be weak, and since you run two drives, that can be a concern.
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Anubis
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 11:09:25
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NoKey
Anubis,
If you put the extra drive in the HP notebook, did you also put the special bracket that is required to mount it?
I say this because without that bracket, the drive can loosen and make noises that can relate to bad plug-in contact.
Also, if you did put the special bracket, still check to make sure the pluging of the drive is making well.
If the noise is when you are running on just batteries, then old battery can be weak, and since you run two drives, that can be a concern.
This notebook actually came with two drives factory installed so yes, all the mounting hardware was there. I'll go ahead and check it to see if it's making proper contact as you suggest. The clicking happens while on AC power.
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NoKey
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 18:38:33
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I have a second HP in which I did put the second drive, and I had problem similar to what you say....At times that clicking specially when I moved the laptop from place to place.
Then I squeezed in some fillers till the problem eventually disappeared. I couldn't find a source for the little bracket that seems like only HP makes for their laptop.
Hope all resolves.
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slartabartfast
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/27 23:26:47
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Seatools includes an "acoustic test" that may help you to confirm that the noise is coming from a particular drive. Regardless of the drive noise, you should be making frequent backups (partition images if a system partition is involved). A head crash should have left some damage that will show up on the full Seatools test. Some drives are just noisy. I have one running on the machine I am typing on that sounds like a Geiger counter in a uranium mine and always has, but has been working for hundreds (if not thousands) of hours. But a drive that ran quiet and then becomes noisy is a worrisome thing.
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Anubis
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/28 09:45:55
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Thanks for that bart. It looks like a useful tool but... DOS?  Anyway I am 90% sure it's the drive because it's located towards the front of the machine and the light goes on concurrently with the click. I guess I have no choice but to buy a new drive but I'm leary of getting another Seagate!
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slartabartfast
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Re:My Hard Drive is clicking... abit more often.
2010/07/28 17:14:47
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It looks like a useful tool but... DOS? It is a more useful tool because it is DOS. Like memtest86+ (Linux) you set it up to run from its own boot disk and run it from memory under DOS, so that it never needs to interact with the Windows OS. That lets it do things that it could not do as well if it were running under an OS that depends on the drives. There is a Windows version of Seatools, but it has turned out to be useless in situations where the DOS version shines, so I usually opt for the DOS version.
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