hard disk making snapping noises

[ronweasley]

hi
my hard disk(maxtor 6y160m0) 160gb/7.2k rpm/SATA I, has been making a clicking or snapping sound (the one that occurs as the system powers off on some pcs)....this occurs every 30 seconds at random.....mostly during drive activity

also access times have slowed down...........my harddisk is 3 yrs old...........reformatted(full format) at least 3 times.....

please help

 

[Gigacore]

This is due to bad sectors, displacement in spindle or arms of read write head due to high potential of current or by a massive or sensitive vibrations... Reformatting 3 times wont make sound to produce.... i've formated n number of times while doing R&D

 

[ronweasley]

so what should i do now........am i about to lose my hard disk.?.......is there a diagnostic tool available to check such flaws.......??.....please help....im worried........

PS: Now it has been occuring once a day............sounds as if the drive is stopping and spinning up again.......and during that instant, access times fall.........later everything becomes normal

 

[pushkaraj]

Make sure that the data cable and power cable of the hard disk is tightly in place.

Just as intel_gigacore said, i guess bad sectors have developed on the platters of the hard disk. Try running windows checkdisk utility.

And BACKUP is the golden word, my friend. As long as the hard disk is working, Backup atleast important data.

 

[sashijoseph]

Looks like it's breathing(read spinning) it's last.Look if there's some warranty left.

 

[pushkaraj]

Looks like it's breathing(read spinning) it's last.Look if there's some warranty left.

I was also going to suggest him the same thing but then i thought, if there was really any warranty left, he wud hav definitely taken advantage of it.

 

[dabster]

so what should i do now........am i about to lose my hard disk.?.......is there a diagnostic tool available to check such flaws.......??.....please help....im worried........

PS: Now it has been occuring once a day............sounds as if the drive is stopping and spinning up again.......and during that instant, access times fall.........later everything becomes normal

search for "seatools" on seagate's site, Download the iso image and burn on a CD or CDRW, Boot computer from this CD, it 'll detect any problems with HDD, this tool can be used with any hdd (not only seagate)

or if it is still in warranty surely go for a replacement.

 

[ThinkFree]

Its time to replace the disk. Backup ur important data now. Does SMART diagnosis during booting gives any error message for HDD?