Is this a failing hard drive?

[naza]

I got a problem in trying to work out for sure if my hard drive is
failing. Problems began a few weeks ago when the 160GB Maxtor Drive
began to make a sort of grinding noise. Just to help you out a bit,
its the sound that happens after the three clicks in the sound clip.

http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/Head_damage 2.wav

There was not as such clicking, but just a loud sound. I know in
normal operation drives do make this sound, but this was much louder.
Anyway, I did a defrag of the had drive and it went away. Today it
came back, I straight away got all my data of the drive. During which
it made the sound not all the time but at some files, sounded rather
random. I left the data on the drive and did a disk check in DOS. At
the stage 2(Verifying Indexes) it made the sound at around 30% and
80%, everytime( I repeated the check a good few times). So then I wipe
and formatted the disk again. Ran the Seatools Program and did all the
tests, it passed all of them. So now I put some data on the drive and
do the the same check on the disk. I can hear the sound but I would
say that would be normal operation. HDD Life reports 55% Health, with
all SMART Tools reporting everything is fine.
Pasting the SMART info was messy, so I upped a SS.

http://i35.tinypic.com/ve96s9.png

The HDD was brought in February so still in warranty made by Seagate
although branded Maxtor. I now cannot get it to make the sounds as it
did before, I have done benchmarks and read/writes test's practically
for the last 4 hours, but all seems fine.

So was the sort of sound I am reporting just due to messed up file
system, which was messing with the head? I did do many full chkdsk's
with the data, before the wipe, I want to be fairly sure there is a
problem before sending the drive away and wasting money, if they claim
there is no fault.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Stevepppp]

Grinding noise (or any kind of noise in a 2002+ Maxtor HD) is a
definite sign to save your data onto a new HD and toss this one. HDs
are dirt cheap nowadays.

 

[Rod Speed]

I got a problem in trying to work out for sure if my hard drive is
failing. Problems began a few weeks ago when the 160GB Maxtor Drive
began to make a sort of grinding noise. Just to help you out a bit,
its the sound that happens after the three clicks in the sound clip.

http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/Head_damage 2.wav

Certainly doesnt sound good, but it may just be an unusually bad sounding recalibration.

Cant say I have ever heard what that particular drive sounds like recalibration wise.

There was not as such clicking, but just a loud sound. I know in
normal operation drives do make this sound, but this was much louder.
Anyway, I did a defrag of the had drive and it went away. Today it
came back, I straight away got all my data of the drive. During which
it made the sound not all the time but at some files, sounded rather
random. I left the data on the drive and did a disk check in DOS. At
the stage 2(Verifying Indexes) it made the sound at around 30% and
80%, everytime( I repeated the check a good few times). So then I wipe
and formatted the disk again. Ran the Seatools Program and did all the
tests, it passed all of them. So now I put some data on the drive and
do the the same check on the disk. I can hear the sound but I would
say that would be normal operation. HDD Life reports 55% Health, with
all SMART Tools reporting everything is fine.
Pasting the SMART info was messy, so I upped a SS.

http://i35.tinypic.com/ve96s9.png

That says that the drive is fine.

The HDD was brought in February so still in warranty made by Seagate
although branded Maxtor. I now cannot get it to make the sounds as it
did before, I have done benchmarks and read/writes test's practically
for the last 4 hours, but all seems fine.

So was the sort of sound I am reporting just due to messed up file system,

Nope, the file system wont do that.

which was messing with the head?

The file system cant do that.

I did do many full chkdsk's with the data, before the wipe, I want to be fairly sure there is a
problem before sending the drive away and wasting money, if they claim there is no fault.

They'll certainly tell you it has no fault.

Just keep the data backed up and see what develops and make
a decision before the warranty expires if it never fails in that time.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I got a problem in trying to work out for sure if my hard drive is
failing. Problems began a few weeks ago when the 160GB Maxtor Drive
began to make a sort of grinding noise. Just to help you out a bit,
its the sound that happens after the three clicks in the sound clip.

http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/Head_damage 2.wav

Hard to tell, may just be ordinary recalibration.

There was not as such clicking, but just a loud sound. I know in
normal operation drives do make this sound, but this was much louder.
Anyway, I did a defrag of the had drive and it went away. Today it
came back, I straight away got all my data of the drive. During which
it made the sound not all the time but at some files, sounded rather
random. I left the data on the drive and did a disk check in DOS. At
the stage 2(Verifying Indexes) it made the sound at around 30% and
80%, everytime( I repeated the check a good few times). So then I wipe
and formatted the disk again. Ran the Seatools Program and did all the
tests, it passed all of them. So now I put some data on the drive and
do the the same check on the disk. I can hear the sound but I would
say that would be normal operation. HDD Life reports 55% Health, with
all SMART Tools reporting everything is fine.
Pasting the SMART info was messy, so I upped a SS.

http://i35.tinypic.com/ve96s9.png

The only thing mildly suspicuous is the seek error rate. A seek
error can cause several kinds of noises. This is not necessarily
the fault of the disk, it can also be a bad power supply, strong
vibration or a bad power connector.

The HDD was brought in February so still in warranty made by Seagate
although branded Maxtor. I now cannot get it to make the sounds as it
did before, I have done benchmarks and read/writes test's practically
for the last 4 hours, but all seems fine.

So was the sort of sound I am reporting just due to messed up file
system, which was messing with the head?

No. A filesystem cannot cause this.

I did do many full chkdsk's
with the data, before the wipe, I want to be fairly sure there is a
problem before sending the drive away and wasting money, if they claim
there is no fault.

Quite possibly there indeed is no fault.

Arno

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

The only thing mildly suspicuous is the seek error rate.

What about the 'Hardware ECC Recovered' figure of 81?

 

[Arno Wagner]

What about the 'Hardware ECC Recovered' figure of 81?

That should be a secondary effect from imprecise seeks and may even be
normal. 81 (of 100) also does not strike me as remarkable.

Admittedly, it could be soemthing in its of right, but as several
people here have shown, ECC recovery figures are diffivuult to
interpret.

Arno

 

[Naz]

Just switched on the PC this morning and looks like the PCB has just
got fried. Rest of the PC looks OK. Electrical fault was the last
thing I was expecting.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Just switched on the PC this morning and looks like the PCB has just
got fried. Rest of the PC looks OK. Electrical fault was the last
thing I was expecting.

Hmm. Probably the servo controller then. This is indeed highly
unlikely. Check your voltages just to make sure. Maybe
+12V is way too high.

Arno

 

[Stevepppp]

Just switched on the PC this morning and looks like the PCB has just
got fried. Rest of the PC looks OK. Electrical fault was the last
thing I was expecting.

Do you live in a humid climate?

 

[Eric Gisin]

The chips driving the spindle or actuator servoes, due to a shot bearing or friction.

 

[Naz]

Just fitted in the replacement drive and I am a little worried by what
is it tell me, particularly the Seek Error rate.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ro5ixj&s=4

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after
running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just
been installed not even initialized by Windows

 

[Arno Wagner]

Do you live in a humid climate?

There is no connection between humidity and electrical faults
that cause burns in low-voltage low-power electronics.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Just fitted in the replacement drive and I am a little worried by what
is it tell me, particularly the Seek Error rate.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ro5ixj&s=4

Looks perfectly fine. 253 seems to be the initial value.

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after
running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just
been installed not even initialized by Windows

Oh. Give it at least several days of usage and then look again.

Arno

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Just fitted in the replacement drive and I am a little worried by what
is it tell me, particularly the Seek Error rate.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ro5ixj&s=4

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after
running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just
been installed not even initialized by Windows

Seagate's raw "Seek Error Rate" parameter represents a cumulative seek
count. It is not a rate, and it is not an error. I don't know if this
applies to Seagate branded Maxtor drives, though.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[shkvorets]

Sounds like the heads are dead...
Here's a good page from wikipedia with similar noises with
explanations: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

 

[Rod Speed]

Sounds like the heads are dead...

You dont know that.

Here's a good page from wikipedia with similar noises with
explanations: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Just because that fool claims its 'bad heads' doesnt make it gospel.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Sounds like the heads are dead...
Here's a good page from wikipedia with similar noises with
explanations: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Thet is utter nonsense, as the OP was able to read data from
the drive.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

So with a straight face you are saying that corrosion is not a factor with
electronics?

No. It is. But not with things that burn up in HDDs. That is pretty
unlikely without a chip fault. Admittedly, it used to be a major
factor.

Arno