Samsung click noise

Vertigo · 5 Apr 2008 at 14:41

Recently purchased a Sammy F1 1TB drive and was doing a full format (which took about 3 hours!). At about 39% it made a single, odd type of "click" noise. Just happened the once, format didn't miss a beat and completed without and further issues.

I'm just a bit concerned about whether I should worry over this click noise or whether it's likely to have been part of its normal operation. Have done a full scan with ESTool without any reported issues and the drive appears to be working fine.

jonas123 · 5 Apr 2008 at 15:00

it was probably nothing, i wouldn't worry about it

Vertigo · 5 Apr 2008 at 15:03

Well I was going to image my main OS+apps drive across to this but I think I'll press it into service as my secondary drive for a while to convince myself it's sound before I trust my main OS to it.

Just trying to convince myself that it's not *that* much faster than my incumbent 750GB Hitachi

Nymins · 5 Apr 2008 at 15:05

If it continues then it could mean its failing. My one did the same thing. Clicked whilst in Windows and it froze for a second, then went fine, then repeat. Until one day it didn't boot.

Just keep an eye on it and listen carefully for anymore.

1337z0r · 6 Apr 2008 at 01:51

My samsung drives make a click noise in vista when they have not been accessed for about 30 minutes. Done it since the first day I had vista, only had one samsung drive die one me and I think that it was due to a bad format. Never get the click noise in XP, so might be a vista thing.

Ed · 6 Apr 2008 at 17:05

In Vista advanced power options you can set HDD power down which initiates the click noise. By default it's something silly like 20 minutes which is frustrating as it also pauses while it does it.

Set it to something useful instead.

thegoonden · 12 Apr 2008 at 17:09

I've got several Freecom externals, which, I am told, contain Samsung Spinpoints inside. They all make a noise that sounds for all the world exactly like the "click of death" that is the final sound many a hard drive makes. They do it only ocassionally, and it doesn't seem to matter roo much if they are idle or moving 100's of GB about, they just do it when they feel the need.
First time I heard it my heart stopped until I seen the access light happily flickering away.
I think they're just reseting their mechanism (like a DVD-drive calibrates itself) now and then, and have military grade head-arm return springs that wallop the head into the stops.

shine · 12 Apr 2008 at 18:10

Ed said:
In Vista advanced power options you can set HDD power down which initiates the click noise. By default it's something silly like 20 minutes which is frustrating as it also pauses while it does it.

Set it to something useful instead.

Ah great - wish I'd looked at this before - explains why I was getting some random pauses.