Hard Drive Click

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Mono

74 posts

Master Geek

#61935 26-May-2010 11:29

Hi there - I recently bought a new computer with a 2TB Western Digital drive. Every so often, the hard drive clicks - that is to say, it makes a single loud click. Somtimes it'll do it five or six times in quick succession. It only happens once every couple of days though...

There is no buzzing, or head seeking noises, or any performance problems at all - seems 100% stable. I'm not getting any corrupt data either.

Should I be worried about the clicking, or what? Is there anything I should do?

Thanks for taking the time to help out!

xpd

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#334998 26-May-2010 11:52

I would be a bit wary.... Fujitsu drives a few years ago use to make an annoying click sound - was just the way the drive was made. Yet other drives clicking was a sign to backup...

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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garvani

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#335003 26-May-2010 12:08

Goto the western digital site and download the diagnostic tools. Run it and see what it says.. I wouldnt trust clicking noises.. HAve installed hundreds of WD drives and havnt had this specific problem. I personally have a 2tb WD green drive. WD drives do fail though we have 1 every few months come in with a failure, usually a read element failure to be exact.

Mono

74 posts

Master Geek

#335016 26-May-2010 12:35

Thanks for the advice - yes, I did download the WD diagnostic tools from their site the other night (should have thought to mention it!) and they didn't seem to see anything wrong - having said that, they gave me a table of SMART data none of which meant anything to me...

pedrogarcia

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#335020 26-May-2010 13:02

I have the exact same problem with a brand new Seagate 1.5TB Hard Drive. It will do this occasionally every couple of days. Worrying because I have transferred my entire digital life onto this thing. Let me knoew what you find out...

Ragnor

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#335054 26-May-2010 14:10

Make a backup, never have any data you want to keep on a single drive.

johnlank

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#335056 26-May-2010 14:13

pedrogarcia: I have the exact same problem with a brand new Seagate 1.5TB Hard Drive. It will do this occasionally every couple of days. Worrying because I have transferred my entire digital life onto this thing. Let me knoew what you find out...

I would recommend urgently doing a backup. Having all your digital data in one place is ok until something goes wrong, then you will really regret it. An external hdd that can be stored in a different part (opposite end) of the house is 1 of the most economical and safest ways. This reduces risk from fire and burglary.

Hope this helps,

John

xpd

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#335057 26-May-2010 14:14

+1 with Ragnor
All the stuff Id be gutted to lose is backed up onto 2 external drives. One I use day to day and backup to it once a month and the second is stored in my draw at work and gets updated every few months.

The wife would kill me if I lost all our kids photos.....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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muppet

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#335067 26-May-2010 14:44

I'm going to go out on a limb here and against the current advice and say "Don't worry". Though, do back up your data just in case I'm full of... well, it.

I have a WD that does this every few days as well, it'll do a bunch of them. It's something to do with the power saving on the drive, it's parking its head which is making the loud clicking noise.

I have downloaded HDPARM and by setting the powersaving to off, I can stop the drive clicking 100%. However I'm not going to explain how to do this as it's not really a great idea as the drive is then spinning all the time.

There's a lot of discussion around it here, but that's all Linux based. I have certainly noticed the same problem on my Windows XP system though.

So my take is, don't panic, it's probably OK. But backup anyway because you might drop it tomorrow.

Audiophiles are such twits! They buy such pointless stuff: Gold plated cables, $2000 power cords. Idiots.

OOOHHHH HYPERFIBRE!

Ragnor

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#335071 26-May-2010 14:53

Yeah if it's a green drive the occasional click might be the drive powering up or down affter being idle in power saving mode...

However that is not a good reason to not have a backup in place!

Mono

74 posts

Master Geek

#335076 26-May-2010 14:55

That would make sense, being a power saving measure from a Green drive. Alright, I'm going to not worry about it, but make backups like I should anyway!

Thanks to everyone who has commented.