Is this normal?

[goober2003]

A while ago my computer was having problems detecting my hdd's on startup every other day and the only way to fix it was reinserting the ide cable, but I haven't had the problem since I disabled the floppy in bios since I don't have one. I think the problem is gone and i'm probably being paranoid but when I startup and it's detecting the hdd's there is a kind of loud clicking sound from it and I don't remember it making that sound before but i'm not sure. I was wondering if it was normal to make that clicking when detecting drives on startup or if it could be a sign that I still have a problem with my mobo or hdd's. Also I already tried replacing the ide cable and my specs are in my sig.

Thanx

[mjc]

I'm not sure that it is normal...most of the time when drives start making noise it is time to start looking for a new one. If everything seems to running normally, grab the manufacturer's diagnostic program. It should be able to detect any problems.

[Steve]

Hi goober,

I also have an 80gig Maxtor and it is pretty much silent. I'd back up everything if I were you. It may be heading south...:(

[Sylvander]

Hello goober2003

You should go into the BIOS setup, "Standard CMOS Setup" and set all the drives to "auto".
This means the drives will be "Dynamically Auto Detected" at every boot and the parameters correctly set in the BIOS and the results of the detection will be displayed on-screen so you can check that all is well [or not]. If your parameters are not perfectly correct at present it could be causing problems.

Having them set to auto means also that you can make changes to the drive arrangement and those changes WILL be detected and catered for and the parameters will always be correct.

I suppose you could still cause problems if you chose a bad arrangement for the jumpers on the drives or the cable connections!

[goober2003]

Thanks for responding,
Where would you find a diagnostic program for it? It only makes that sound right when it's detecting the drives but it hasn't been acting strange any time other then that yet.

[Steve]

HERE'S (http://www.maxtor.com/products/diamondmax/techsupport/TechnicalProcedures/20014.htm) a link to the site. Hope it's the right one. It's what I use for my drive.

Hope it helps...:)

[HeadachesAbound]

The Maxtor diagnostics can be found here... http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/index.htm

You'll need the model number of your hard drives to get them.

[goober2003]

It won't let me do the diagnostics since I don't a floppy. I tried testing the drives with http://www.pcpitstop.com/ and fix it 4.0 which did random seek test, read/verify test, butterfly seek test and neither of them found any problems so do you think i'm ok?

[HeadachesAbound]

No guarantee that the pcpitstop tests are complete enough to test the drive properly. I would recommend scavaging a floppy drive to do the test.