HDD Clicking
- Thread starter 'Wes
- Start date
Erm, get your data backed up ASAP that's normally the sign that the drive is about to fail
Never had this happen to me, but I've read the above a few times now. Just make sure you don't lose anything
Yes backup! It is usually a bad sign but there is a small chance that it could be due to an irritating feature of the APM (advanced power management), especially with older drives. Had this happen to myself on a laptop. This thing would make the most horrendous death rattles until I discovered (after an RMA for a drive with exactly the same noise) that it was actually the APM setting that caused the problem. The various HDD manufacturers release DOS boot tools for tweaking this kind of low level stuff. I quite often use Hitachi's ftool (will work on drives from other manufacturers).
Anyway if the problem returns, I'd try setting APM to max performance and see if the clicking goes away. The fact that it appears to be an intermittent problem probably rules out the above and wouldn't inspire me with confidence in the drive but worth a shot. Oh, and make that backup!
Anyway if the problem returns, I'd try setting APM to max performance and see if the clicking goes away. The fact that it appears to be an intermittent problem probably rules out the above and wouldn't inspire me with confidence in the drive but worth a shot. Oh, and make that backup!
Or more! I even make a backup of the backup onto external HDD but you could describe that as over cautious / paranoid?
Saw in your sig that it's a Seagate, right? If the worst does happen you should have good warranty support, so provided that backup is in place you should be good. Hope it turns out to be a false alarm.