HDD emits a peculiar clicking sound-what could be the cause?

quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
I have 3 Seagate hdds on my system-80 GB,320 GB and 1 TB and they are powered by a corsair VX 450W psu.The first 2 drives are over 5 years old whereas the 1 tb drive is around 2 years old.I have never faced any issues with them and they have served me well till date.But of late,I have been noticing that sometimes(but not always)when i power on my pc,one of them emits a peculiar clicking noise for approximately 1-2 mins while windows is starting up.But as soon as the booting process reaches completion(i.e. when windows has finished loading),the sound stops and is never heard again,even though i keep my pc running for 10-12 hours daily.I haven't been able to figure out which hdd is emitting the noise.

Also I haven't experienced any degradation of my system's performance till date either(such as very slow file transfer speeds,which can be regarded as an indication that the HDD is malfunctioning).I have tested my Hdds with crystal disk info,which shows that all of them have a "Good" health status.So i don't understand what's wrong with my system.Is it possible that one of my hard disks is about to fail and so it emits that noise while my pc is starting up?
 
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gameranand

gameranand

Living to Play
What about the HDD temps ?? I think thats the mechanical thing that going on inside the HDD but it sure shouldn't make much noise at all.
 
K

kkn13

Cyber Genius FTW
Backup those 2 old drives ASAP and run a hdd test using hdd health from cnet one of them may fail
I strongly suspect the 80gb one

Also try booting with only of the drives at a time in the bay and see which one it is

Or it may even be your psu which is emitting it check the psu for any damage as well
 
OP
quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
kkn13 said:
Backup those 2 old drives ASAP and run a hdd test using hdd health from cnet one of them may fail
I strongly suspect the 80gb one

Also try booting with only of the drives at a time in the bay and see which one it is

Or it may even be your psu which is emitting it check the psu for any damage as well
Click to expand...

Thanks to everyone of you for replying.


@gameranand:According to the information I obtained from Crystal disk info,the temperatures of all my hard drives appear to be well within acceptable limits-they usually vary from 34-40 degrees Celcius.

@kkn13:I downloaded this utility and installed it,the readings i got from it are as follows:

1 tb drive: Temp:34 ° C, Health:79% (Good)

320 GB drive: Temp:39 ° C,Health:85%(good)

80GB HDD: Temp:37° C,Health:84%(good)

They are pretty similar to the readings i obtained from crystal disk info,so it seems none of the hard drives are likely to fail anytime soon(in theory).My 1 tb drive apparently has 79% health-can it be considered ok or is it a symptom that something may be wrong with it? However I'm not convinced that these readings are totally accurate-do you think there might be a possibility that even though there is a problem with one of my drives,these utilities are not being able to detect it?

FYI windows 7 is installed on my 80 GB drive(ironically,this one appears to be the healthiest of the 3)-does that mean it is the one which is emitting the noise(because logic dictates that when windows is being loaded,it is the one which should be operating rapidly,thereby generating the noise)?

Even I thought that the fault may lie with the psu,but the noise appears to be coming from the front of the cabinet where the hard drives are installed and therefore i think one of the HDDs is probably malfunctioning.
 
avinandan012

avinandan012

Cyborg Agent
HDD qualities have degraded over last five years that's why you see lower warranty period now - a - days.
I have a very old 80GB seagate HDD bought around I 2000-2001 it still working. But I have 4-5 250GB,500GB HDDs bought around 2006-2007 were dead by 2010.

about your original problem the drive making that noise will die soon.

do one test run with each drive & you will get which one is making that noise
 
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Flash

Flash

Lost in speed
Gearbox said:
Which HDD has most bad sectors?
Click to expand...
[h=3]4. Abnormal Ticking Noise[/h]In some instances a failing hard drive can present with an abnormal ticking noise whilst the disk is reading data. This can be a sign that the disk has bad sectors (the magnetic storage on that part of the drive is degraded). The noise is generated by the actuator arm returning to the same spot on the disk in multiple read attempts.
Click to expand...

Hard drive data recovery

Time to migrate the data to your new drive..
 
topgear

topgear

Super Moderator
Staff member
I've one IDE HDD which emits strange whirring sound which shutting down the pc .. but oddly the motherboard stopped functioning ;)
 
Hrishi

Hrishi

******************
Usually that sound is associated with corrupt sectors. Like Gearbox explained earlier , it happens when the arm notices failures while reading data from the platters.
If there's no bad sectors at all , then it could probably be something else.
 
Flash

Flash

Lost in speed
I've had too many bad sectors in 250GB HDD yday, for which HDSentinel showed as Health as 40%.
Used HDD Regenerator today, and it ran for nearly 3-hours fixing some bad sectors, now the Health is 70%.. :mrgreen:

*i.imgur.com/LKcRl2X.jpg
 
kg11sgbg

kg11sgbg

Indian Railways - The Vibrant and Moving INDIA
Rishi. said:
Usually that sound is associated with corrupt sectors. Like Gearbox explained earlier , it happens when the arm notices failures while reading data from the platters.
If there's no bad sectors at all , then it could probably be something else.
Click to expand...
Most likely a mechanical failure,impeding.
The arm which moves and stays a hair breadth above the surface of the disk platters,may be into some malfunctioning mode.
 
OP
quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
Thanks a lot for your suggestions.I have bought an internal 1 tb Toshiba Enterprise HDD(Toshiba-MK1002TSKB) to take backups of my data(i wanted to go for WD caviar Blue but it wasn't available in kolkata).Are Toshiba HDDs reliable?I hope this one won't fail anytime soon :-( .
 
gameranand

gameranand

Living to Play
quicky008 said:
Are u sure of it?I was told by the shopkeeper that Rashi peripherals handles the RMA for Toshiba!
Click to expand...

Well I am not exactly sure. I read about it long time ago. Its a possibility that after the purchases of companies and all they might have changed sides.
 
OP
quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
topgear said:
Rashi handles the RMA of Toshiba and Hitachi's RMA is handled by WD AFAIK.
Click to expand...

I thought as much-what gameranand has mentioned sounds too good to be true!

BTW are toshiba's HDDs really unpopular among pc users?The internet is flooded with reviews of all types of seagate and WD hard drives but there are hardly any for toshiba's HDDs(especially the internal ones)-why is it so?
 
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