Hdd clicking - hang

[antimon]

Hi,

I have a 160gigs samsung sata hdd, a week ago (after a power outage),
it atarted to make a "clicking" sound at random times, like it restarts

itself and so windows hangs a little while, then everything works fine.

I did not care about the clicking till today, thought it might be about

windows or something but it did happen a couple more times today.

So i backed up everything important and downloaded the tool named
"hutil" from seagate website. It is a hdd diagnose tool. And it could
not pass the "surface read test" cause of a couple of ecc errors. Does
it mean it has bad sectors? What should i do? As it works fine, isn't
it possible to mark that sectors causing errors not usable or
something? Or is it time to buy a new one?
I had no experience with hdd failures so i don't know what to do.
Please help me about this.

Thanks.

 

[MixMasterJ]

I don't think it is going to matter what type of drive it is, but I will
tell you I have had 2 western digitals go out within a month of their making
a clicking noise. You did not mention how old the HDD was, but I would tell
you to go ahead and get ready to buy a new one. Replacing a 160 gig drive is
not all that expensive today.

 

[David Vair]

Clicking is a bad sound and an indication that the drive is getting ready to die, see if it is still
under warranty so you can get a replacement. If not under warranty just buy a new one. The surface
scan test may mean bad sectors on the disk or a failure in the read/write heads.

 

[Brian Gaff]

Before you throw out the hd, hang a different drive on the motherboared.

I say this as my experience has been that two of my motherboards were
somehow damaged by power outages or surges, and the clicking was the first
symptom. Over about a month, the system became unusable due to disc errors
and it was only when I hung a cloned drive which was fine on that I REALISED
WHERE THE PROBLEM WAS.

I HAD TO STOP USING IT AS IT WAS TRASHING ANY DRIVE HOOKED TO IT BY,
PRESUMABLY, WRITING TO WHERE IT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO.

you CAN OF COURSE REPAIR THE DAMAGE DONE, IF IT IS THE MOTHER BOARD, AND
REUSE THE DRIVES. I HAVE TWO HERE THAT WERE IN THAT ILL FATED MACHINE.

either WAY, A SUBSTITUTION TEST OF DRIVE IN ANOTHER MACHINE OR VICE VERSA
(use 98 AS THIS WILL BOOT ON ANY OLD HARDWARE).

bRIAN

 

[Brian Gaff]

PS got a dodgy caps key, too many crumbs!

Brian

 

[antimon]

I plugged my old seagate ide disc, the clicking sata disc is still
connected but clicking stopped as it is not being used actively.
It is under warranty so i'm gonna replace it. I'm not sure if it would
affect the ide drive similar if it's caused by the motherboard but
gonna try it.
I guess i need a ups since i have lots of power issues here..

Thanks to everyone

 

[Frank]

I plugged my old seagate ide disc, the clicking sata disc is still
connected but clicking stopped as it is not being used actively.
It is under warranty so i'm gonna replace it. I'm not sure if it would
affect the ide drive similar if it's caused by the motherboard but
gonna try it.
I guess i need a ups since i have lots of power issues here..

To me using a computer without a _quality_ UPS is just like driving
a new automobile without insurance. A person could lose everything.