Hard drive clicking and freezing-NOT defective drive

[loco4olas]

This is my virgin post-so be gentle.

This is not the usual hard drive clicking-about to die question-well probably not.

I have PC the specs below. I have just replaced the HD with a brand new 80GB IBM (Hitachi) drive-replaced on RMA after the last drive died.

The old drive was working fine and then it started a clicking/ticking routine as follows:

When I was trying to open a new browser window or running an intensive graphic program with big images-the drive would start to click/tick as though it was turning on and off and the PC would freeze-HD activity light on-it would sound like it the HD would click/tick and whir then click/tick and whir and then would finally load the graphic program or the browser window and then stop the clicking/ticking and then be fine-then say 10 mins or so later-or when I was opening a few progs. at once-away it would go again.

Then one day it just died-so Hitachi sent me a replacement HD.

Reinstall operating programme and other apps to new HD-all's well for a week or so-and now again same routine starting up on the new drive.

Makes me suspect there is motherboard or power supply problem-or something else?

I added an extra 512MB of RAM (upto 1GB) and thought there may be some kind of conflict and took out the new RAM stick-made no difference so put it back in.

I'm worried that I'm about to stuff up another drive and lose all the data again (yep all's backed up).

I'm moderately OK with hardware/software and confident in pulling things apart etc-but honestly have NO IDEA about this problem and I'm getting a little lost as to what to do.

Huge thanks in advance to any that can help.

Matt (Sydney, Australia)


Running the following:
WIN XP SP2
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ Processor.
Memory: 1GB DDR Memory.
Motherboard: Asus A7V 333 ATX Motherboard.
HardDrive: 80 GB IBM Harddrive.
Optical Drive: LG 52x32x52 CDRW Burner.
Optical Drive: Pioneer 109 DVD-R.
Floppy Disk Drive: 1.44mb Floppy Disk Drive.
Audio: 6-Channel C-Media Audio.
Video: Geforce 64mb MX440 AGP Graphics Card.
Case: ATX Case with 400W Power Supply.

[Rocketmech]

Welcome to Sysopt!
Just run Hitachi / IBM 's Drive Fitness utility (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) to check the drive. Some drives are good but are just noisy when seeking . I've got a Western Digital that occassionally does a Ka - Thunk , for no apparent reason for a few years now, and still going strong . (knock on wood ) :p
It helps to keep the drive defrag'd with a good defragger utility regularly , such as Diskeeper 9 .

If the drive checks out ok , then you should enable S.M.A.R.T if its available in your bios or use Speedfan which can check SMART on the drive. This way you can get a early warning prior to any failure , hopefully.

[loco4olas]

Yeah,

Thanks, I've tried all those things and the drive checked out OK-that's why I suspect something else going on-just not sure what or how to diagnose it.

Again, thanks.

Matt

[Rocketmech]

Drive Fitness and SMART indicate the drive is good ? If so, thats usually a good sign its not a hardware issue.

What defrag utlity did you use? XP's resident utility is adequate but there are better choices.


A few things to consider:
Use a different power connector from the PSU, or try another PSU.
How is your page file set ?
Is XP's Indexer enabled? if yes, disabled it.
Have you experimented turning off background apps and services ? esp. AV's...
Have you thoroughly scanned for virus' and spyware ?
You might just have a noisy drive...

[loco4olas]

Not sure about page file?
Indexer disabling?
Yes to apps.
Yes to spyware.

It's not a nosiy drive-it's very quiet under normal operation.

The click is a loud dull click-like the drive is switching on and off-hard to explain-and as I said the same nosie was made when the last drive was in before it died-that's why I suspect it is a MOB or PSU problem.

Just REALLY hard to diagnose-particularly when it's so erratic.

The momentary freeze up while it clicks-on and off (or so it seems) is troubling.


Just loss for a cause and concerned that it's the MOB (or something else)-and it was responsible for killing the last drive and now it's after the warranty repalced drive too......

Matt

[Rocketmech]

1. Page file ... I was thinking of hard drive thrashing , but give this article merit anyways and try the tweaks, it wont hurt to try.
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-05-10.htm#1

2.Disable XP's Indexing Services (http://www.tweakxp.com/article139784.aspx)

3. The click is a loud dull click-like the drive is switching on and off-hard to explain ...this sounds like the Ka-Thunk my WD makes , which I can't explain either...but I don't get any lags or freezes. Usually my activity is idle , such as when viewing a webpage or doc , and the event is very seldom.

4. As for the mobo and psu concerns, theres only a few things you can do :
- Check voltages with a voltmeter.
- Update the mobo chipset drivers.
- replace psu
- check for bad capacitors , http://www.badcaps.net/ident/
- lastly, replace the psu and / or mobo .

5. Something else to consider here is , HDD manufacturers don't replace an rma with a new drive, but either repair or replace it with a refurbished drive. So, its possible you got the same drive back or a replacement with the same problem.

[Bovon]

I just setup a small e-mail machine using 2 each 20 gig WD's...one is a ghost backup of the master drive.

Each one of those WD's have a rapid data click...sound fast...like a machine gun and I know its just data retrieval or writing.

Now, I have a dead Maxtor here that died last year after several months (and passing Maxtor's tests) of clicking...started off around the first of 2004, and continued until about September...one day I tried to boot up, and it just clicks.

Personally, I will not trust a clicking hard drive again.

[BuildItYourself]

I'd contact Hitachi. I've seen many cases where the drive checks out fine with diagnostics but is still faulty. As said above, I would not trust a clicking drive.

[loco4olas]

It's still doing the same thing-a loudish single click and then some whirring sound and the page (e.g. loading a new web page in Firefox) hangs while the HD clicks once, twice maybe three times, with say a second or so between the clicks.

Then it whirrs a little and the page loads and the HD makes the usual quiet whirring sounds as it seeks info etc-just the usual then.

Very odd and just want to resolve it-I've checjed and it is a brand new drive-not a refurb etc-has a three year warranty-BUT, I suspect it's NOT the drive but something on the MOB or PSU-PSU I guess I can swap it out with another one-but diagnosing a MOB issue? And what type of MOB issue? Eeeek!

Matt
Sydney, Australia

[BipolarBill]

I would order a new drive anyway. The DFT doesn't always see a problem when there is one. It may be ready to die. Don't get "caught out". Replace it right away.

[r8500]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
I would order a new drive anyway. The DFT doesn't always see a problem when there is one. It may be ready to die. Don't get "caught out". Replace it right away.

Bill is right on the money here. DFT didn't recognize my drive failing, until the day it went poof!

[loco4olas]

I think you guys may be missing the point-I really don't think it is the drive.

I'll run another drive for a few days and see if I encounter the same problem and report back.

Matt
Sydney, Australia

[loco4olas]

Sorry, that should have read, with respect, I think you guys may be........

Another hint on the problem-when, as an example, I'm browsing a page with a lot of images and want to scroll down the long page, or I'm looking at particularly large pdf file and so on, the hard drive will make a single click, the page will freeze for say 2 seconds, then the hard drive wll make another single click and then the page will unfreeze and the PC will then continue on as normal.

Hope this helps in the diagnosis sleuthing.

Matt
Sydney, Australia

[Plaster]

Originally posted by loco4olas
I think you guys may be missing the point-I really don't think it is the drive.

I'll run another drive for a few days and see if I encounter the same problem and report back.

Matt
Sydney, Australia

You have the infamous Hitachi "Deathstar" Deskstar drive. They were notorious for failing at about the highest rate ever. I wouldn't suggest another RMA. I'd actually suggest throwing it in the trash and buying a WD, or Seagate drive. 120GB drives are relatively ineaxpensive now days. You can probably find one for less than $60 after MIR.

http://techreport.com/news_reply.x/2799/1/

[loco4olas]

Hmmm, Plaster-that's an interesting thread thanks-makes me suspicious it IS the drive and not the MOB or PSU now.

Will run a spare HD now for a few days and see how it goes-see you on the other side.

Matt
Sydney, Australia

[rmanet]

RMA it - again - also check you're power management settings so the drive isn't shutting itself down (just a guess) - would also recheck cabling, jumper settings, updated mobo chipset and IDE drivers, etc.

[crazyCol]

Make sure you have got a upto date back up, just in case these guys are right, as a former Deathstar owner I think you might need it.

[loco4olas]

Rmanet-I couldn't be bothered RMAing it again-looking at getting the Western Digital Caviar 160GBSE ATA-100 7200RPM 8MB 8.9ms drive.
Power management-all OK-the issue arises where the HD is put under load-e.g. heaps of graphics in a web page-opening another browser window-working with images etc.
Cabling looks OK-was thinking perhaps a capacitor on the MOB-they all 'look' OK.
jumper settings correct-master 1.
Have not looked at updating MOB or IDE drivers-any hints on this.....?


CrazyCol-yep-I have copied everything of signiifcance to DVD and CD where appropriate.

Thanks to all for the input.

Matt
Sydney, Australia

[crazyCol]

Cool I learnt the hard way.

[zybch]

The clicking/clunking noise is usually the drive trying to re-read data that it hasn't been able to successfully retrieve. The heads are moved to the 'park' position then back across to where the data should be time and time again till the data is successfully read or the drive just stops trying and sometimes causes the drive to lock up the entire PC.

A similar ticking sound was dreaded by owners of the original 100Mb zip drives and was known as the Click of Death for good reason :)
There are programs like Spinrite (www.grc.com) that whizz the heads in from all different locations on the drive so the end position is slightly different eah time. Doing this increases the chance of retrieving data, but the drive should never be trusted after it starts clicking.


Computer World (www.cworld.com.au) have 200Gb WDs for $149.

www.cworld.com.au

I run 4 of these and have yet to experience any issues at all and at least they come with a 3 year warranty. Most smaller than 120Gb drives only have single year warranties so its probably worth paying for a bigger drive for the extra peace of mind should it go bad after 3 years.

[loco4olas]

zybch,

Thanks for that info-that seems to be what is occurring-that is, the drive will click and then will stall as it seems to seek info and then once it's found the info it'll be off and running OK again.

I note that if I defrag the C drive (primary partition-with OS on it etc.) then the clicking will not occur for a few days-so it seems to make senses that it's a drive specific fault-and specific to this drive model.

Thanks for the research on price on the WD 200GB-assume they're a good drive?

Again, thanks.

Matt
Sydney, Australia