2024-12-22

Hard Drive Clicking

How To Tell If The Noisy Hard Drive Is Normal?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM13 mins

Noisy Hard Drive Current hard drive technology dictates that some noise will occur during drive operation. The type of noise and the volume of the noise can change depending on the current function that the drive is involved in. It is important to recognize which noises indicate trouble and which are simply normal drive sounds.

Normal drive sounds include:

  • Whining noise during drive spin-up
  • Occasional clicks during data access
  • Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode)

Abnormal drive sounds include:

  • High-pitched whining sound
  • Vibration sounds due to either vibration in the mounting hardware or in rare cases, a drive failure
  • Clicking or clunking sounds that occur repeatedly
  • Grinding sounds

Solutions:

Step1: Make sure it is not a case fan or another device
Turn off the system. Remove both the power and data cables from the drive. Turn on the system to see if the noise continues. If the noise is still present, the drive is not the cause. Search for another device such as a case fan, which is causing the noise. If the noise is no longer present, continue with Step 2.

Step 2: Determine if the problem is the hard drive or its data cable
Turn off the system. Connect only the power cable to the drive, and turn on the system. If the noise occurs, the problem is with the drive. At this point, continue with Step 3. If the there is no noise, the drive is not at fault. Turn off the system and connect your data cable. Turn on the system. If the noise occurs now, your data cable is faulty and should be replaced.

Step 3: Try the hard drive in a new location
Turn off the system. Install the drive into a different drive bay or place it securely on an anti-static surface if available. Attach only the power cable. Turn on the system. If the noise is still present, the drive has failed and should be replaced.

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What should I do for a noisy seagate hard drive?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM02 mins

Hard Drive Noise All of seagate new Parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives and new Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives are optimized for performance, they do not have a utility that can quiet them down.

While modern drives are extremely quiet, every hard drive makes a certain amount of noise while running. Normally, the faster the drive motor spins, the higher pitched the resulting sound will be.

It is also normal for the hard drive to make sort of a “chattering” or “clicking” sound while it is reading and writing data.

However, if the sound coming from the area around your hard drive has recently changed or is an excessive grinding or clanking noise, this may indicate a physical problem with the hard drive.

Noise from the cooling fans in the power supply are often mistaken as hard drive noise.  To isolate whether the noise is coming from the drive or one of the fans, you can issue a “spin down” command through software.  The Seagate SeaTools for DOS diagnostic has an acoustical spin down test.

If the sound goes away, then the sound was produced by the hard drive.  If the sound remains, then the drive is not the cause of the sound.

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The Solutions for Clicking Noise HDD

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM02 mins

First of all you need to find out what is the real problem with your drive. You have to be 100% sure that you diagnosed the hard drive correctly. And serial port (so-called “Terminal”) is the only “proper” way to diagnose the hard drive. Forget about swapping heads until you are absolutely sure they are the problem. There is no room for mistake.

There are lots of reasons why a hard drive can make clicking noise, and yes, the most common reason is malfunctioning head stack (either a head itself or the preamplifier chip that is located on the head stack). But there are chances that the problem is not the head stack. You need to find that out via hard drive’s serial port.

Again, never open a drive unless you are 100% sure that the problem is inside. This applies to everyone, including all data recovery people out there.

Now, speaking about heads, it is possible to change the head stack without damaging platters. Cool guys somehow manage to swap 14+ heads head stacks without it being something very special to them. You just need some good experience. I believe it’s been told hundreds of times, but it is worth repeating: good data recovery people spent years to gain the knowledge and experience needed to perform something that is slightly more than just swapping PCBs and using Winhex.

Hope this will give you some better understanding of the situation.

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Clicking Hard Drive Recovery

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

Hard Drive ClickingHave you ever heared a clicking noise from your hard drive? Do you want to know how to diagnose and recover your hard drive from this noise? Recently i found a professional recovery company (DataCent.com) which is good at recoverying data from thses hard drive clicks such as bellows:

Western Digital
1. Western Digital desktop drive with bad heads clunking.
2. Western Digital 500GB desktop drive with bad heads slowly clicks a few times and spins down.
3. Western Digital 250GB desktop drive with head crash clicks a few times, then spins down.
4. Western Digital 250GB desktop drive with stuck spindle can’t spin up, chatters.
5. Western Digital laptop drive with bad heads making clicking sound.
6. Western Digital 200GB desktop drive with bad preamplifier chip (located on the headstack) clicks a few times, spins down.
7. Western Digital desktop drive with unstable heads clicks a few times and stops spinning.
8. Western Digital laptop hard drive with stuck spindle trying to spin up with siren.
9. Western Digital 500GB desktop hard drive with bad bearings can’t gain full rotational spee

Seagate
1. Seagate desktop drive with degrading heads making thrashing, then clicking sound.
2. Seagate desktop drive with bad heads slowly clicks and beeps on spin up.
3. Seagate laptop drive with bad heads making clicking/knocking sound.
4. Seagate desktop drive with seized spindle trying to spin up.
5. Seagate Momentus laptop drive with bad heads making nasty drilling noise.

Maxtor
1. Maxtor desktop drive with bad heads making clicking/knocking/beeping noise.
2. Maxtor drive with bad heads making steady clicking/knocking sound.
3. Maxtor desktop drive with stuck spindle playing futuristic cell phone melody.
4. Maxtor drive with stuck spindle and musical siren again.

Samsung
1. Samsung 80GB desktop hard drive with bad heads making fast clicking sound.
2. Samsung desktop hard drive with bad heads clicks, then spins down.
3. Samsung 40GB desktop hard drive with bad head knocks a few times.
4. Samsung desktop drive with degrading media making scratching sound when hitting bad sectors.

Hitachi/IBM
1. Hitachi laptop drive with bad heads clicks once on spin up, then beeps.
2. IBM desktop drive with degrading media making scratching sound when hitting area with bad sectors.
3. Hitachi/IBM laptop drive with bad heads making clicking sound.
4. IBM 40GB desktop hard drive with degrading media/heads rattles and squeals on spin up.
5. Hitachi 60GB laptop drive with stuck spindle can’t spin up, makes humming/buzzing noise.

Toshiba
1. Toshiba laptop hard drive with stuck spindle trying to spin up(heard if taken close to your ear).
2. Toshiba laptop drive with degrading bearings making grinding sound.
3. Toshiba laptop drive with bad bearings making loud grinding sound.
4. Toshiba laptop drive with bad bearings making nasty drilling/screaming sound.
5. Toshiba laptop drive with bad heads making clicking/sweeping sound on boot up.

Fujitsu
1. Fujitsu laptop drive with bad heads making clicking/knocking noise.
2. Fujitsu laptop hard drive with bad heads making sweeping sound.
3. Fujitsu 40gb desktop drive with bad media making scratching noise.

Quantum
1. Quantum desktop drive with bad heads making clunking sound.

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