Hard drive clicking

[Tam]

Hi,

I installed Vista Premium 64bit last week,

Since then one of my hard drives has been giving an intermittent
click.

It never did this before so im just wondering if it isnt something
vista is doing as it indexes the drives etc for seaches n stuff.

I have one 200gb IDE, one 250gb IDE with a 500gb SATA.

Anyone else come across this problem?

Regards

Tam

 

[Robert Martin]

I have a WD 500GB SATA that click and spins down more than it should.
My WD Raptor doesn't do this.

I know this doesn't help but at least your not the only one.

 

[DanS]

Hi,

I installed Vista Premium 64bit last week,

Since then one of my hard drives has been giving an intermittent
click.

It never did this before so im just wondering if it isnt something
vista is doing as it indexes the drives etc for seaches n stuff.

I have one 200gb IDE, one 250gb IDE with a 500gb SATA.

Anyone else come across this problem?

Regards

Tam

Not to solve your problem, if it is a problem, but you can d/l a free,
and excellent utility called AIDA32. It will tell you all about your
hardware.

There is a section within AIDA32 that reads the S.M.A.R.T. info stored in
the hard drive.(Let's say that S.M.A.R.T is the HD self-monitoring itself
for issues.) You can at least check to see if there is anything reported
there.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

Additionally, the HD manufacturers usually have a utility that can be run
that does a multilevel performance/operational check of the HD in
question.

 

[Tam]

Thankyou for your responses

Regards

Tam

(e-mail address removed):









Not to solve your problem, if it is a problem, but you can d/l a free,
and excellent utility called AIDA32. It will tell you all about your
hardware.

There is a section within AIDA32 that reads the S.M.A.R.T. info stored in
theharddrive.(Let's say that S.M.A.R.T is the HD self-monitoring itself
for issues.) You can at least check to see if there is anything reported
there.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

Additionally, the HD manufacturers usually have a utility that can be run
that does a multilevel performance/operational check of the HD in
question.

 

[DarkSentinel]

Not to solve your problem, if it is a problem, but you can d/l a free,
and excellent utility called AIDA32. It will tell you all about your
hardware.

There is a section within AIDA32 that reads the S.M.A.R.T. info stored in
the hard drive.(Let's say that S.M.A.R.T is the HD self-monitoring itself
for issues.) You can at least check to see if there is anything reported
there.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

Additionally, the HD manufacturers usually have a utility that can be run
that does a multilevel performance/operational check of the HD in
question.

Unfortunately there are a few caveats here. Aida32 is old. Therefore the
info it provides is limited. Some of the info it provides is wrong. For
example, in mine the results for my fan speeds is WAY off. Like on the
order of 4000+ RPM. Probably more important, if you are running an nVidia
based chipset, you will not get ANY S.M.A.R.T info whatsoever, because
nVidia does not support it on their current drivers. I ought to know, just
asked them WHEN they were, as I use Everest Ultimate which is a MUCH better
program to monitor my system. There ARE workarounds for the S.M.A.R.T issue
with the nVidia stuff, but they result in either performance degradation,
driver hacks, and/or system instability.

Now, as for the clicking...

As it is intermittent, it is more than likely the drive indexing, or being
accessed for what ever reason. If it were the notorious "click of death" you
would be hearing it almost constantly. The "Death whine with click of death"
is also a good one...

But just to be safe, do a deep scan of the drive(s) checking for errors and
bad sectors.

 

[Felmon Davis]

But just to be safe, do a deep scan of the drive(s) checking for errors and
bad sectors.

and perhaps back up anything important. that would be the very _first_
thing _I_ would do anyway. it would scare the crap out of me to have a
hard-drive a-clicking!

Felmon

 

[non flammable on Ubuntu 7.10]

Hi,

I installed Vista Premium 64bit last week,

Since then one of my hard drives has been giving an intermittent
click.

It never did this before so im just wondering if it isnt something
vista is doing as it indexes the drives etc for seaches n stuff.

I have one 200gb IDE, one 250gb IDE with a 500gb SATA.

Anyone else come across this problem?

Regards

Tam

Vista stops the drives from spining by default after some time... (VERY
STUPID IF YOU ASK ME!) you can go to the power options and check..

but clicking usually means the hard drive is dying.. if you have
something very important, back it up NOW, then see if the power option
settings will solve the issue...

dont even think about it.. do a backup NOW if you have important stuff..

better safe than sorry

 

[the wharf rat]

but clicking usually means the hard drive is dying.. if you have

It can also be a symptom of insufficient power for spinup. A
hard drive draws several times its average draw on startup because the
platter motor needs to overcome the inertia of the stopped platters. Many
commercial pcs are configured with inadequate power supplies and it's
entirely possible IMHO that such an inadequacy might allow the drives to
spin up during power on (when even the cpu is drawing very little being
mostly idle) but not allow for spinup when the cpu, memory, vga, and
etc. are all in use.

For instance, if you plug a USB hard drive into a non powered hub
you're likely to hear it click as though it was on its last legs, and it
wont' start up either. Same thing if you plug it into an UNDERpowered hub.
It needs that whole 500 ma to get started...