strange hard drive noises

[gecko]

my computer has become increasingly slow over the last month or so, and my hard drive has been making strange sounds lately. just want to know if my hard drive is breaking or if there could be something else wrong?

[daveob]

Backup your data and make a Ghost copy of the drive NOW !!!

You can come back and Thank us for the advice later.

[Norri]

Definitely what Dave said! It can take months or it can take minutes but, one day, you will wake up and all your data will be gone.

Make the backup and replace your hard drive asap.

[Chrisjan B]

Definitely what Dave said! It can take months or it can take minutes but, one day, you will wake up and all your data will be gone.

Make the backup and replace your hard drive asap.

I STRONGLY AGREE!

[Dave S]

Ditto, this is a typical "FAILURE IMMINENT WARNING". Make an image NOW!!!

[Dave A]

Maybe gecko's hard drive died and that's why he's not back.

(Or she I guess - you never know nowadays )

[gecko]

hey im back!

thanks for the help your asap's really did help. my hard drive crashed last week and i had to get it replaced, copied everything and now i still have all my valuables that were on there, phew thank goodness.

why did it crash though, did i over use it?
the guy that fixed it said i had dropped it, but unless it myseteriously fell when i was not around, it couldnt have been that.

[duncan drennan]

why did it crash though, did i over use it?
the guy that fixed it said i had dropped it, but unless it myseteriously fell when i was not around, it couldnt have been that.

There are LOTS of reasons a hard drive could fail. Due to the noise it was making I would guess that the bearing probably failed. Hard drives get hot and there is a fair amount of mechanical strain on the moving parts.

Something as simple as the failure of a capacitor on the power supply could also stop a hard drive from working, but that wouldn't have warning noises. The chances of the electronics breaking (under normal conditions) are lower than the chances of the mechanical bits failing.

[gecko]

hmmm ok so if it was a heat issue do you think its because i keep my computer running 24/7 or maybe my fan is broken or not working properly?

[Chrisjan B]

hmmm ok so if it was a heat issue do you think its because i keep my computer running 24/7 or maybe my fan is broken or not working properly?

Nowadays I am installing a Hard drive cooler on mostly all hard drives - it brings down the temperature of the hard drive down with about 10 degrees Celsius. In my box I have two 320GB 7200 rpm harddrives running at 31 degrees. I think the cooler you can make it run the longer it should last. It adds about R 90-00 to the cost of a PC. IMHO money well spent.

Also a big case with fans in front and back will also help air circulation and will affect the temperature in the case.

I would like to hear your opinions on the hard drive cooler.

Thanks.

[duncan drennan]

Also a big case with fans in front and back will also help air circulation and will affect the temperature in the case.

But the noise of all of these fans and things drives me mad

[Dave A]

At least hard drives a lot more durable nowadays. Back in the early days of PCs you could only expect about 18 months life out of them - something about a controller that had a nack for getting tired really quickly.

[Chrisjan B]

Ok Duncan - if you use a big case and 120 mm fans it helps a bit for the noise - it spins slower and move a lot more air than the 80 mm fan and is not as loud and have a different frequency - not so irritating.
For the hard drive cooler - it is very quiet - I don't hear them at all - but I must admit that I am hard of hearing!

[murdock]

i didnt even see it coming...only now that the hard drive is out the box can i hear the "strange noise" my drive with all my backups crashed on sunday morning i lost everything all my reports...pictures...my entire bussiness records the whole lot.

i have since decided to invest in an external 500gig hard for backups and a 8 gig flash drive another 500 gig drive and keep both as backups so if one goes down the other will have the info saved...i just need to find someone to set the pc up now that if automatically backs up all the data so that i dont have

one of the major causes of hard rive failure is an erratic power supply...i decided to connect my logger to the power in my office and i can see why my hard drive packed up...i had disconnected my UPS for maintenace reasons so it has been off for a couple of weeks...i just never got around to servicing it.

word of advice if you have pc make sure you have a UPS connected...the online units are more expensive but will save your components in your pc.

something else i have learnt about cooling and air circulation it works a lot better if you blow into a chamber fill it with air then exhaust it...rather than sucking air out of a chamber...just some usless information.

[Dave A]

i didnt even see it coming...only now that the hard drive is out the box can i hear the "strange noise" my drive with all my backups crashed on sunday morning i lost everything all my reports...pictures...my entire bussiness records the whole lot.

All the data lost, gone, finito?

Have you at least got reliable data on your debtors ledger? (Losing that would be my number 1 nightmare).