HD Reads Every Second on the Second

[ChipTheMouse]

Hey all. New user here. I've been playing with PCs for about 17 years now, and this is the only uncurable problem I've encountered.

When idle.. the HD I have reads every second, for a breif spat, on the second. My wall clock is like an echo to it!

This only started happening recently (2 weeks ago?)

Now I have zero-wiped, reinstalled windowsXP (legally thankyou), and soon as I booted back to do updating and installation, BOOM.. rrr ... rrr ... rrr ... rrr! I heard of people having the same problems in Linux, but I'm in XP here, so situations a bit different.

I remember Windows 95/98 used to make this same noise when searching for New Hardware in the Add Hardware Wizard, but that was a diff PC.. diff HD.


Im using a Western Digital 40 GB drive from 2003
Model : WDC WD400JB-00ENA0

If this is harddrive failure building up.. I'm afraid, but prepared with successful backup.

Thanks for your help!

~Justin

 

[wahnula]

Im using a Western Digital 40 GB drive from 2003

Well, that could be your answer right there. While some people run their gear until it breaks, I look at a HDD as a 5-year investment. With 500 GB drives going for around $100, you're probably due for a replacement...expecially if it's causing you so much grief!

Tony

 

[edfair]

Possibly something being looked at regularly by the OS? A change mandated by a MS patch?

I would try an alternate OS from floppy but suspect that isn't valid with your XP since it is likely NTFS.

You might try WD diagnostics.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[xit]

Good to hear that you have backed up your system.

Might try to open task manager & go to processes to see if there is a process using resources.

just a thought, but older hard drives will sooner or later start to fail.

xit

 

[Nelviticus]

The sounds could be what are known as 't-cals', which means 'thermal calibrations'. As the temperature of the platters changes they expand or contract and even though these changes in size are tiny the drive has to re-calibrate to make sure the heads are in the right place.

Modern drives don't do this but older ones did - see this link for more info:

Thermal Recalibration

If the drive is doing it once a second then it is becoming faulty. It may well continue to work for years but as wahnula pointed out, you may as well replace it.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[snorkel]

Try the Western Digital HDD diagnostics to see if you have physical problems with the drive. Try booting into Safe Mode and see if the same thing happens.

http://support.wdc.com/download/

Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (either for floppy or CD-ROM, your choice.