Unusual hard drive noises

[Dan]

I have a 5 year old gateway athlon 1100. PC now has 2 hdd's, the
original western digital 40 gig drive & a 2nd western digital 120 gig
drive which I added about 18 months ago. PC is dual boot, running win2k
on the newer, larger drive & xp home on the older, smaller drive. Until
recently, I had run off the newer drive under win2k almost exclusively.
I recently switched to running xp on the older drive all the time.
There have always been 2 characteristic clicks the pc has made when
powering up, one click for each hdd as it starts. This very
identifiable clicking has until the last few weeks (coincides witht he
switch to xp) only been heard at startup. Recently, the clicking has
occurred randomly, usually several times in a row, while running the pc.
Just now, I was using Zone alarm to virus scan a particular large
folder, & the clicking occurred perhaps 6 times in rapid succession. The
file being scanned is on the newer drive, but again I am running off of
the older. At this point, pc has been on about 3 days straight. In
order to isolate the noise, I pulled the cover & both drives, & re-ran
the scan, the noise reappeared & sounds as though it is coming from the
older drive. It may be heat related, because after running outside the
case, repeating this test (the virus scan) failed to produce the noise.
PC has 3 fans, one on the cpu, one in the PS, & one I added at the
front after adding the 2nd hdd, which blows across the 2 drives. My
concern is that this noise is signaling the imminent failure of the
older drive. Is this cause for concern?


TIA

Dan

 

[philo]

I have a 5 year old gateway athlon 1100. PC now has 2 hdd's, the
original western digital 40 gig drive & a 2nd western digital 120 gig
drive which I added about 18 months ago. PC is dual boot, running win2k
on the newer, larger drive & xp home on the older, smaller drive. Until
recently, I had run off the newer drive under win2k almost exclusively.
I recently switched to running xp on the older drive all the time.
There have always been 2 characteristic clicks the pc has made when
powering up, one click for each hdd as it starts. This very
identifiable clicking has until the last few weeks (coincides witht he
switch to xp) only been heard at startup. Recently, the clicking has
occurred randomly, usually several times in a row, while running the pc.
Just now, I was using Zone alarm to virus scan a particular large
folder, & the clicking occurred perhaps 6 times in rapid succession. The
file being scanned is on the newer drive, but again I am running off of
the older. At this point, pc has been on about 3 days straight. In
order to isolate the noise, I pulled the cover & both drives, & re-ran
the scan, the noise reappeared & sounds as though it is coming from the
older drive. It may be heat related, because after running outside the
case, repeating this test (the virus scan) failed to produce the noise.
PC has 3 fans, one on the cpu, one in the PS, & one I added at the
front after adding the 2nd hdd, which blows across the 2 drives. My
concern is that this noise is signaling the imminent failure of the
older drive. Is this cause for concern?

the drive is probably failing
run the mfg's diagnostic utility

 

[kony]

I have a 5 year old gateway athlon 1100. PC now has 2 hdd's, the
original western digital 40 gig drive & a 2nd western digital 120 gig
drive which I added about 18 months ago. PC is dual boot, running win2k
on the newer, larger drive & xp home on the older, smaller drive. Until
recently, I had run off the newer drive under win2k almost exclusively.
I recently switched to running xp on the older drive all the time.
There have always been 2 characteristic clicks the pc has made when
powering up, one click for each hdd as it starts. This very
identifiable clicking has until the last few weeks (coincides witht he
switch to xp) only been heard at startup. Recently, the clicking has
occurred randomly, usually several times in a row, while running the pc.
Just now, I was using Zone alarm to virus scan a particular large
folder, & the clicking occurred perhaps 6 times in rapid succession. The
file being scanned is on the newer drive, but again I am running off of
the older. At this point, pc has been on about 3 days straight. In
order to isolate the noise, I pulled the cover & both drives, & re-ran
the scan, the noise reappeared & sounds as though it is coming from the
older drive. It may be heat related, because after running outside the
case, repeating this test (the virus scan) failed to produce the noise.
PC has 3 fans, one on the cpu, one in the PS, & one I added at the
front after adding the 2nd hdd, which blows across the 2 drives. My
concern is that this noise is signaling the imminent failure of the
older drive. Is this cause for concern?

It "could" mean that. Run the HDD manufacturer's
diagnostics. If you dont' have "Smart" enabled in your
bios, enable that too. Drives do wear out eventually, the
safest thing would certainly be to refrain from running
system till you (first) get the data copied off, backed up,
etc... would be best to do that even prior to running
diagnostics or any kind of scanning.

For important data it is usually prudent to replace drives
before they become 5 years old.

 

[Dan]

Thanks for the replies, I bought a 160 gig on sale for $59 (after 2
freekin' rebates) & have replaced the 5 year old 40. I dunno, seems to
me hdd's used to last longer than 5 years, oh well...

Dan