Weird clicking noise

d3moliti0n · 16 Feb 2009 at 23:35

Hi

Basically whenever I turn on my PC now, there is a weird clicking noise what sounds like it is coming from the hard drive. This lasts for about 10-20 seconds and stops just before the Windows XP loading screen appears. I have been reading up about what the noise could be and most reference say it's a sign of impending hard drive failure. I've scanned both hard drives in my PC for errors and it's found nothing, and the status of both hard drives is 'Healthy' on the computer management/disk management screen. Should I be worried about this? Should I invest in a new hard drive sooner rather than later? Anybody have any idea what this clicking noise is?

Thanks for your help.

d3moliti0n · 17 Feb 2009 at 01:04

I've just scanned the main hard drive in my system (using HD Tune) which has the Windows installation on it and it's reporting that there are no errors/damaged sectors at all and it is healthy. I am going to scan the other hard drive tomorrow and see if there is anything wrong with that one.

d3moliti0n · 17 Feb 2009 at 12:18

I've scanned both hard drives now and there are no errors on any of the two. I also tried that SpeedFan thing and checked the S.M.A.R.T tab and the health of one of the drives is 100% and on the other it is about 90-95%. I'm still getting the clicking noise though whenever I turn the PC on, it only started happening last week I think.

d3moliti0n · 17 Feb 2009 at 13:03

Well, I just took the side off my computer, unplugged one of the hard drives from the computer (both power connector and SATA connector) and I still got the clicking noise when I booted up the computer, then I reconnected that hard drive, disconnected the other hard drive (both power and SATA connectors) and booted up the computer, and I still got the clicking noise. I don't understand how the hard drive can click if it's not connected to a power source to start up the hard drive? So I'm thinking it could be something else in my computer, although everything else looks fine.

d3moliti0n · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:11

I don't have a floppy drive installed on the computer. The only thing installed is an optical DVD RW drive. The clicking noise sounds like it is coming from the front end of the PC tower, basically where the hard drives/optical drive and on/off switch is. So I'm putting it down to either the optical drive or the power switch/something to do with the case or the onboard sounds that the computer makes, eg. caps lock etc.