WD Caviar clicks

[Rocky]

Is it normal for a WD Caviar 15.3GB to give 1 to 3 clicks or clunks at irregualar intervals (every now and then) whenever it's reading/writing??
The PCGuide article http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/phys.htm said every 15 seconds for WD drives but mine seems to be an exception. Is this normal??

I used the Data lifeGuard tools and NDD and they didn't find any problems; the drive works just fine otherwise.



[This message has been edited by Rocky (edited 01-03-2001).]

[jim y]

Hard drives park their heads somewhere safe when they are bored. Some have little magnets to hold the heads there when in transit, hence a click when it unsticks itself. How long it takes to do this depends on the drive and even your power saving settings. Some bios's can do this independant of the OS and you may find a setting there that will turn this off. Remember that most modern OS's use the hard drive for memory when the real memory (RAM) is full, as in the windows swapfile. This means that the drive may spring into life even when you arn't saving or loading any files. My own IBM deskstar seems to go walkabout when it gets bored (I have power management disabled). I don't know what it's doing but it ticks quietly away at something!

[PostCode]

Another reason for this is to find track 1. If the drive is having a hard time reading from a given location, it will 'forget' and go back to the first track to reorient itself. Typically, however, this is found in failing drives that are clicking all the time. Just a little tidbit. hope this helps.

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Eric's BIOS Post Codes (http://www.webenet.net/~ntuser)

[Rocky]

Well, I hope it isn't failing. Would SMART technology, Data Life Guard tools, or NDD detect this - (trouble finding a particular track)??

[PostCode]

This does not mean that your drive is going bad. It's simply a indication of a possible problem....."possible". WD's tools are alright, but they tend to be quick and dirty...not to my likeing. I prefer Micro Scope and Tuff Test myself, which do a more though job at examination and LL. UX is also another personal fav. SMART seems to be a "workable" technology, but I think the BIOS and the drive have a difference of opinion sometimes depending on the (drives make and BIOS make dont like one another it seems...still investigating this myself so dont take my word on it). hope this helps. If the drive is simply jumping back to track 1 and continues to operate with no problem, then another possibility is the system BIOS and the way the two are talking and using translation on the C/H/S....hope this helps.

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Eric's BIOS Post Codes (http://www.webenet.net/~ntuser)