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Thread ID: 83640 2007-10-08 03:59:00 Hard Drive Clicking... JMoore (9352) Press F1
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599248 2007-10-08 03:59:00 Hey there, yesterday I noticed an intermittent clicking noise coming from my tower. At first I thought it sounded like a floppy drive access but later I concluded it was the hard drive. Later in the evening when trying to copy a file to one of the hard drives the copy stopped and I was presented with a blue screen error informing me that if this was the first time this had happened I should simply restart (I can't remember the exact error). Restarted fine but definitely made me feel a bit uncomfortable and so I proceeded to back up 146GB to a second drive using SyncBack SE.

I haven't noticed the clicking noise today yet but wondered what software or diagnostic procedures I should perform to find out if there is an issue? I read about SMART somewhere but am not 100% sure what the deal is...
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
JMoore (9352)
599249 2007-10-08 04:05:00 Clicking from a HDD is never good. Good on you for backing up straight away.

Are you sure it's the HDD that was clicking? If thats the case, I personally would get a new HDD and chuck that one straight away. Never take chances with important data. ;)

What's the brand of the guilty HDD?

SMART stands for Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. Built into the BIOS. It sometimes works, I never trust it. Generally, if a HDD is far enough gone for smart to kick up a fuss, your buggered. (I'm saying this from experience). It can't hurt to use it, but don't rely on it.

It would be a good idea to run a diagnostic on the drive, go to the manufacturers website and download one. Often with clicking, though, it's a circut board issue rather than bad sectors.
wratterus (105)
599250 2007-10-08 04:09:00 Thanks for your reply. I'm not 100% error but coupled with the blue screen error which I have never come across before it didn't sit too well.

The hard drive is a Seagate.
JMoore (9352)
599251 2007-10-08 04:12:00 Download Seatools (www.seagate.com), burn the .iso to a CD using Imgburn, (www.imgburn.com) and boot off the CD. Run a full diagnostic, and see what it says. ;) wratterus (105)
599252 2007-10-08 04:18:00 Thanks again for your help. I had actually just downloaded Seatools for Windows and scanning the drive returned Fails for both DST and Generic (my second hard drive passed both tests). Do you recommend I use the DOS version to run a full diagnostic? JMoore (9352)
599253 2007-10-08 04:24:00 I think you've probably got enough info there. It's on the way out. If you want to be double sure, you can, but in my opinion, it's not worth it. :o

Replace the drive. With another Seagate. :thumbs:
wratterus (105)
599254 2007-10-08 04:34:00 OK good to know. The drive was purchased in December 2005 and I understand it has a 3 year warranty. Would the failed tests be sufficient evidence to redeem the warranty? Do you recommend Seagate to replace? JMoore (9352)
599255 2007-10-08 04:46:00 OK good to know. The drive was purchased in December 2005 and I understand it has a 3 year warranty. Would the failed tests be sufficient evidence to redeem the warranty? Do you recommend Seagate to replace?

Seagate is a good brand.

You can only but try with the warranty, if seagates own tests say its failing they should replace it.
wainuitech (129)
599256 2007-10-08 05:22:00 Do you recommend Seagate to replace?
Seagate all the way.
I wouldn't even consider recommending anything else.
Bozo (8540)
599257 2007-10-08 07:26:00 Download Seatools (www.seagate.com), Run a full diagnostic, and see what it says. ;)

Be aware that Seagate Tools is good at bad sectors and not much else.
I've had screamingly obvious faulty drives that Seatools passed.
Seagate themselves admit that.

And Seagate HDDs have a 5 year warranty - not 3 years.

If the shop refuses to honour the warranty you can send it direct to Seagate in Singapore - doesn't take as long as you might think.

Its rare for one to fail but now and then it happens to even the best.

You could run Windows chkdsk over it too - although noises indicate a hardware fault rather than a software fault.
pctek (84)
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