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Hard drive making noise

Myst112

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One of my hard drives (a Samsung 160GB SATA) started to make a constant noise, like if something got stuck in a fan, and it keeps getting louder the more time the PC is running. I have disconnected the drive for now, What should i do with it, its not under warranty any more.
 

GJSNeptune

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So it's like a harsh clicking?

If it sounds worse than the normal read/write ticking, it's likely failing. If the drive works at all, pull as much data from it as you can (assuming there's data on it that you want to keep).
 

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agreed, sounds like its starting to either wear down, or something got stuck.

GJSNeptune is right, pull the data you want off of it and get ready to buy a new one. Im sorry.
 

Myst112

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So it's like a harsh clicking?

If it sounds worse than the normal read/write ticking, it's likely failing. If the drive works at all, pull as much data from it as you can (assuming there's data on it that you want to keep).

its like a wire is touching a CPU fan, something like a loud "zzzzzzzzzz" noise, like a bee.
 

GJSNeptune

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Yeah, that's bad. Salvage what you can and get a new one. If it's out of warranty, I'm assuming it's pretty old anyway. Although I'm still using a 40GB WD drive from about five years ago.
 

Myst112

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i've reconnected the drive and now its not making any noise, for 5 hours already
 

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Don't take it for granted, salvage your info, and at most use that drive as a low-priority file backup drive or something. I've had a similar experience, and unhooked the drive, forgot about it for months...found it, hooked it up cause I needed more space only to have it fail in a couple weeks. The first day or two it sounded fine, then it started sounding like grinding gears...I was ignorant of it, just figuring the drive was old. That bit me in the ass, I lost 60GB of backup information and music.

Take my experience and everyone else's advice, salvage the information, ditch the drive before it stops functioning.
 
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So did it act up when you would be doing something, as in saving a file so the HDD would kick up, or was it just constant sound no matter what? Ive never heard of a constant sound, normally its a ca-click ca-click ca-click vrooooom and repeat.
 

Myst112

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Don't take it for granted, salvage your info, and at most use that drive as a low-priority file backup drive or something. I've had a similar experience, and unhooked the drive, forgot about it for months...found it, hooked it up cause I needed more space only to have it fail in a couple weeks. The first day or two it sounded fine, then it started sounding like grinding gears...I was ignorant of it, just figuring the drive was old. That bit me in the ass, I lost 60GB of backup information and music.

Take my experience and everyone else's advice, salvage the information, ditch the drive before it stops functioning.

yes, i backep everything up to another drive and just using this one for unimportant data
 

Myst112

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So did it act up when you would be doing something, as in saving a file so the HDD would kick up, or was it just constant sound no matter what? Ive never heard of a constant sound, normally its a ca-click ca-click ca-click vrooooom and repeat.

Yep, constant like a fan only louder, just zzzzzzzzzzzz, then louder ZZZZZ, then i just shut down, wait 5 minutes and everything back to normal. And when the PC shuts down, the HD stil spin downs when all the other fans are all stoped, so it couldnt be them
 
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Has it effected performance?
 
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Well, right now it doesn't sound like are in any danger, but like we have all said BACKUP your files. It sound like it could be dying I've just never heard of a HDD making a constant sound. Have you changed your system up or tweak it at all or was the noise spontaneous?
 
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yes, i backep everything up to another drive and just using this one for unimportant data

Its likely to die or encounter corruption in the future if you heard head noises, or spindle problems.

I would leave it to unimportant information for the rest of its days. ;)
 
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If you have the ambition, give it a good boot nuke and see whats happens, saved on of my HDD once.

(boot nuke is Deriks Boot&Nuke you can dl the ISO and burn it, google it up, good tool to have around)
 
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If you have the ambition, give it a good boot nuke and see whats happens, saved on of my HDD once.

(boot nuke is Deriks Boot&Nuke you can dl the ISO and burn it, google it up, good tool to have around)

Boot and nuke just does a true format.

Formatting will actually speed up hard drive failure if its a physical read/write problem.
 
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well its just a weird sign of failure, ive never heard of a constant sound, and boot nuke can fix cylinder and head problems which can cause odd things to happen to a HDD.
 
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well its just a weird sign of failure, ive never heard of a constant sound, and boot nuke can fix cylinder and head problems which can cause odd things to happen to a HDD.

:confused:

If you have head or cylinder problems, its going to disrupt the near perfect reading and writing(it doesn't touch!) and probably contact the platter....

which means the drive's fucked. end of story.

Its lifespan, however may vary :p
 

Myst112

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Well, right now it doesn't sound like are in any danger, but like we have all said BACKUP your files. It sound like it could be dying I've just never heard of a HDD making a constant sound. Have you changed your system up or tweak it at all or was the noise spontaneous?

i've formatted the drive a few days ago nad installed vista on it, currently im in XP which is on another drive. The noise apperead 2 days later early in the morning, it woke me up.
Now i actually dont know which of my drives are ok, cause my new one, the Seagate 320GB is making a click noise now or then when accessing data, i dont really remember if it was before, is that ok? Just bought it a week ago
 
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Uh the click noise is also a sign of dying, I think both of your HDD's are on there way out dude.
 

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yea i got this old 40 gig that sounds like a paper shredder. it works great, but i only use it for messin' around with stuff like linux or as a backup windows. just take it out and use it only when you're bored or if you need it for something "low-priority" as someone else put.
 

Myst112

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well the click sound is not constant, it makes one click, then the next one can be 5-10-30 or 60 minutes later.
 
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well the click sound is not constant, it makes one click, then the next one can be 5-10-30 or 60 minutes later.

HDD's often DO make noise when operating.;)
 

Myst112

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The clicking sound on my hard drive is gotten kinda annoying, so i called the place where i bought it, told them all about the noises i had and if i can replace the drive. Well, they said that if it doesnt have erros or something like that they cant take it back, jeez so i gotta wait till it dies and all my data is lost, pfff :/
 
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Just back up, thats all you can do for now. Try to not use the Harddive as much as you can and throw it into an old *nix box or something.
 
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