The disk in this laptop is second hand. I bought it used from a
"friend". It seems to work and all that, and I’ve used it for about a
month without problem, but I’m slightly uneasy.
- In the box I recieved the drive in, it had slipped out of a wad of
protective packaging and was just slinding around freely.
– The drive was used.
– It makes odd noises.
That last one is what’s really bothering me. In normal operation, you
can bearly hear the drive over the fan. It’s nice and quiet. But if I
just leave the machine sitting for a few moments with nothing running,
I hear random clicks, about once every two minutes. And they don’t
sound like the drive does normally, they are almost like pings. Oddly,
there are different lengths of them. One is just a short "ping" sound,
the other is longer, it almost sounds like the ping, then a metal
object hitting another metal object. I’m not entirely sure what to make
of it.
It does this in both Windows 98 and Debian Linux 3.1
I tried to record a clip of the drive in normal operation, but it was
inaudable over the fan. Here is a clip with one of the shorter pings:
http://gecko.f2o.org/download/test1.wav
The drive is a TravelStar, capable of holding 20gigs.
Is my disk getting ready to die on me?
The audio file you posted didn’t contain anything offensive… Sounds like
normal drive operation (of an old technology drive) to me. I didn’t hear
any metal on metal – if you do hear it I would assume the worst and be ready
to replace the drive.
Alls do backups, but especially when in doubt! Make sure you do a complete
backup and do regular (weekly) incremental backups.
"James d" <jame…@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1140473606.737348.124110@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com…
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
> The disk in this laptop is second hand. I bought it used from a
> "friend". It seems to work and all that, and I’ve used it for about a
> month without problem, but I’m slightly uneasy.
> – In the box I recieved the drive in, it had slipped out of a wad of
> protective packaging and was just slinding around freely.
> – The drive was used.
> – It makes odd noises.
> That last one is what’s really bothering me. In normal operation, you
> can bearly hear the drive over the fan. It’s nice and quiet. But if I
> just leave the machine sitting for a few moments with nothing running,
> I hear random clicks, about once every two minutes. And they don’t
> sound like the drive does normally, they are almost like pings. Oddly,
> there are different lengths of them. One is just a short "ping" sound,
> the other is longer, it almost sounds like the ping, then a metal
> object hitting another metal object. I’m not entirely sure what to make
> of it.
> It does this in both Windows 98 and Debian Linux 3.1
> I tried to record a clip of the drive in normal operation, but it was
> inaudable over the fan. Here is a clip with one of the shorter pings:
> http://gecko.f2o.org/download/test1.wav
> The drive is a TravelStar, capable of holding 20gigs.
> Is my disk getting ready to die on me?
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
James d wrote:
> The disk in this laptop is second hand. I bought it used from a
> "friend". It seems to work and all that, and I’ve used it for about a
> month without problem, but I’m slightly uneasy.
> – In the box I recieved the drive in, it had slipped out of a wad of
> protective packaging and was just slinding around freely.
> – The drive was used.
> – It makes odd noises.
> That last one is what’s really bothering me. In normal operation, you
> can bearly hear the drive over the fan. It’s nice and quiet. But if I
> just leave the machine sitting for a few moments with nothing running,
> I hear random clicks, about once every two minutes. And they don’t
> sound like the drive does normally, they are almost like pings. Oddly,
> there are different lengths of them. One is just a short "ping" sound,
> the other is longer, it almost sounds like the ping, then a metal
> object hitting another metal object. I’m not entirely sure what to make
> of it.
> It does this in both Windows 98 and Debian Linux 3.1
> I tried to record a clip of the drive in normal operation, but it was
> inaudable over the fan. Here is a clip with one of the shorter pings:
> http://gecko.f2o.org/download/test1.wav
> The drive is a TravelStar, capable of holding 20gigs.
> Is my disk getting ready to die on me?
Given the prices of hard-disk, I would not think twice and I would buy a
larger one, after having made sure the bios of my machine will support it.
–
John Doue
That is a normal drive sound. If that’s the extent of it, I would not
be terribly alarmed. What’s not clear is if the drive is doing this on
it’s own (it could be a "thermal recalibration"), or if Windows is doing
something, but the sound itself is normal enough.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
James d wrote:
> The disk in this laptop is second hand. I bought it used from a
> "friend". It seems to work and all that, and I’ve used it for about a
> month without problem, but I’m slightly uneasy.
> – In the box I recieved the drive in, it had slipped out of a wad of
> protective packaging and was just slinding around freely.
> – The drive was used.
> – It makes odd noises.
> That last one is what’s really bothering me. In normal operation, you
> can bearly hear the drive over the fan. It’s nice and quiet. But if I
> just leave the machine sitting for a few moments with nothing running,
> I hear random clicks, about once every two minutes. And they don’t
> sound like the drive does normally, they are almost like pings. Oddly,
> there are different lengths of them. One is just a short "ping" sound,
> the other is longer, it almost sounds like the ping, then a metal
> object hitting another metal object. I’m not entirely sure what to make
> of it.
> It does this in both Windows 98 and Debian Linux 3.1
> I tried to record a clip of the drive in normal operation, but it was
> inaudable over the fan. Here is a clip with one of the shorter pings:
> http://gecko.f2o.org/download/test1.wav
> The drive is a TravelStar, capable of holding 20gigs.
> Is my disk getting ready to die on me?
On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:56:55 GMT, Barry Watzman
<WatzmanNOS…@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>That is a normal drive sound. If that’s the extent of it, I would not
>be terribly alarmed. What’s not clear is if the drive is doing this on
>it’s own (it could be a "thermal recalibration"), or if Windows is doing
>something, but the sound itself is normal enough.
>James d wrote:
>> The drive is a TravelStar, capable of holding 20gigs.
>> Is my disk getting ready to die on me?
If you download Everest Home Edition, you can read the SMART
diagnostics off the hard drive and get a good picture of overall HD
health, such as read errors, high temps, etc.
The vendor no longer offers the free Home Edition, but you can get it
at http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html. Highly recommended.
–
Neil Maxwell – I don’t speak for my employer