hard drive ticking 1

[mikeg2004]

i have a western digital 30gb and when i boot there is a ticking noise inside the case is there anyway to fix this problem or is the hard drive bad

 

[mainegeek]

Hello mikeg,
If this is a new noise aside from the normal puring/clicking noise that some drives make, I would say that the drive has failed/failing and is on its way out.

Probably bad logic board.

 

[cdogg]

"[blue]when i boot there is a ticking noise inside the case[/blue]"

Inside the case of the PC or the hard drive? Assuming you have narrowed down the noise to the hard drive, then the next question is how long it's been happening and whether there was a time when it didn't exist.

Like mainegeek said, if the noise is relatively new or annoyingly loud, then there's a good chance that the drive is about to fail. Make sure you take the necessary precaution in making a complete image of your hard drive to CD, DVD, tape drive, or another HDD.

"Some" ticking noise at low decibels is common. What you are hearing is the resonance of air being pushed around at high speeds on the inner portion of the case as the head moves back and forth. The more a drive is fragmented, the more the head has to move especially at bootup. Try defragmenting only after you backup your data.

There are also other possibilites to the cause. Sometimes when the lubricant around the head wears down, there is less air resistance to hold the head slightly above the disk platters. As soon as random contact is made, you start losing sectors and eventually the whole drive (not to mention hearing more grinding noises in the process).

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle

 

[mainegeek]

Good explaination cdogg.....

 

[cdogg]

Thanks...
Probably went a bit over the top, but sometimes you just have the time and energy!
B-)

 

[jward52]

Has anyone besides me noticed a higher failure rate with WD hard drives over the last 3 to 4 years? When comparing them with Maxtor & Seagate, I have seen an average of about 6 fail to every one Maxtor or Seagate.
Jim

 

[keno1]

I bought two WD 40Gb drives and put them in two seperate PC's and they both failed within the same week just 13 months later.
Now using Maxtor's.
It knocks your confidence a little.