Peculiar (hard drive?) sound.

[mike2002]

Has anyone has experienced this? For the past few weeks my hard drive has been making an intermittant noise, a single 'striking' sound, as if something is hitting on a casing. More recently this has been accompanied, and preceeded by, a high-pitched zinging sound lasting about a second or more. The 'zinging' increases in volumn, and sounds like -- zzzzzzzzzzzclonk

It does it whilst viewing files, but can also happen whilst booting.
Another strange thing is that it can be absent one day, then it does it the next.

I have run a full scan with Scandisk but, apart from discovering some lost file fragments, it reported that the drive is OK with no bad sectors. I additionally have a second hard disk, used to store .exe and music files on.

I presume it IS the hard drive, and that it is unlikely to be the fan.
Apart from this, the drive is functioning as normal.

[david eaton]

Hi Mike.
From your description of the noise, and the fact that it happens during disc intensive operations it looks as if the drive is on the way to the scrapper. Go to the manufacturers website, and grab the diagnostics program. How old is this drive, as most makers give a three year warranty, and you may be able to get a replacement. Again, check on the website for details.

David

[jabarnutcase]

Mike
I must agree with David- Doesn't sound good. What kind of drive is it? (Curious)
In addition to running the utility David mentioned, I would suggest you start backing up whatever you consider important data that's on that drive! ("Just in case")
(Unless of course, you've already done so)

[mike2002]

Originally posted by mike2002
Has anyone has experienced this? For the past few weeks my hard drive has been making an intermittant noise, a single 'striking' sound, as if something is hitting on a casing. More recently this has been accompanied, and preceeded by, a high-pitched zinging sound lasting about a second or more. The 'zinging' increases in volumn, and sounds like -- zzzzzzzzzzzclonk

It does it whilst viewing files, but can also happen whilst booting.
Another strange thing is that it can be absent one day, then it does it the next.

I have run a full scan with Scandisk but, apart from discovering some lost file fragments, it reported that the drive is OK with no bad sectors. I additionally have a second hard disk, used to store .exe and music files on.

I presume it IS the hard drive, and that it is unlikely to be the fan.
Apart from this, the drive is functioning as normal.

[mike2002]

Thank guys. Like I said, I'm only assuming it is the drive as it doesn't sound like the cooling fan. Drive is Maxtor 40GB, model 6L040J2. It's not even 6 months old.
I downloaded and ran Maxtor's Diagnostic program, and it gave the drive a clean bill of health!
I e-mailed Maxtor and described the sound. They didn't comment on what it could be, but offered to replace the drive if I returned it to them. But you have to have an authorisation number, so it will probably be easier to approach the retailer first.
Today I've been on the computer for about 4 hours off and on. Guess what, the drive hasn't been making the noise all day! But tomorrow may be a different tale.
I don't want to lay blame on the drive until I've found out exactly what's causing it.
My secondary drive is about 3 years old. Although it probably gets fired up in addition when booting, it is not actually being accessed when the noises are prominent.

Apart from that, everything's fine and dandy.

[mjc]

Try looking through the Maxtor diags, I think that there is some sort of program to run to control the noise level, try setting it to both maximum noise supression and then disable it...this is of course if it has one.