SATA Hard Drives Making Loud Clunking Sounds

[Mav3000]

Hi All,

Originally:

I had a 25GB WD SATA Hard Drive which ran without problems for over a year. Recently, it began clunking intermittently causing my PC to hang in Windows.

Fearing it was failing, I bought another - a 250GB WD SATA II Drive to replace it. When I plugged it in, this too began making the same noise when I tried formatting it and installing XP on it.

Fearing it was the PSU (which has had fan buzzing problems for a while), I bought a new 500w PSU.

Now, I have both SATA drives plugged in and working, however they continue to 'clunk' randomly when under load. They don't cause the PC to hang, but it can't be doing them any good!

I wonder now if it is the SATA controller on the MoBo causing the HD's to clunk? It is an MSI 675 Neo-s MotherBoard.

Part 2:

Hi, I have bought and installed my PCI SATA Card. I installed the drivers in Windows XP with the drives still running from the motherboard and shut down, then booted my PC with the drives plugged into to.

Firstly, I got a whole load of errors saying it couldn't find vital windows files - command.com etc, so I swapped the two drives around on the SATA card. This time, Windows boots no problem. However, it doesn't see the second SATA drive - my newest.

And... they still clunk now and again. Once when the PC switches on, once when it shuts down, and randomly inbetween.

Few questions:

1) My newest HD is SATA II. Do I have to put the 150Mb/s jumper on it to slow it down or will it do this automatically?

2) Why doesn't Windoes XP see the second drive? it shows up in the SiliconImage Bios screen and there is no RAID set.

3) What could still be causing the clunking? So far, my PC has had a new HD (which clunks), new PSU, and a new SATA Controller card. what else could it be?

I'm very near to taking it into a shop and being charged a lot just for them to have a look at it - but would love to fix it myself! I've just totally run out of ideas.

SMART says that the fitness of the older SATA I drive is 100% and everything is ok. It reports that the newer SATA II drive is 0% and several items are reading very poor performance - error writing etc.

The original SATA I drive on its own clunks
The new SATA drive on its own clunks
Both drives together clunk - although with both in its hard to pin-point which one, if not both are clunking - it sounds like both.

 

[attrofy]

Clunking is almost always a bad sign - it is USUALLY an internal issue. It is possible - and extremely coincidental, that you may have gotten a bad HD right out of the box with your new HDD. The fact they are both the same, indicates it may be a design issue. Since you isolated the PSU, and the SATA controller, chances are it is not an "electrical impulse" issue - unless it is coming from the motherboard.

I would check Western Digitals web site for some diagnostic software, and run some sector level tests on your drive. They should be able to tell you the nature of the software and tests - and tell you what to expect, when to use them, and what to look for. If not, someone else can chime in.

Personally, I have a strong bias against Western Digital. Granted it has been a number of years since I have used them, but I have been leary of them for a long time - as they seem to consistently fail for me. Others report outstanding luck and longevity - so it may just be bad luck on my part. But in either case, I try to avoid them. I state all of this to tell you I am not familiar with their diagnostic tools. Other tools out there by other HDD manufacturers will usually work as well. I believe Seatools from Seagate, and whatever Maxtor's tool used to be called (I believe it is now a Hitachi tool - Drive Fitness test) I believe work with other manufacturers HDD. There are third party tools out there as well that work very well.

I know you ran the SMART tool, but they only report limited info. And usually it only reports what the OS sees. If there is cprruption on a physical level, or lower level, SMART often wont catch it.

Lastly, I would contact Western Digital Tech support and ask them what they make of it. They would probably provide a better answer then taking it to the local PC shop....and it is free. In the end it is probably going to be either a "normal" noise, or a failing drive. Make sure your current drive is backed up before you go too much further forward. Preferably to a drive that is not clunking.

As for the Windows issues, usually you have to format the partition within Windows for it to see the other drive.

Right-Click on My Computer > Manage > Storage > Disk Managament. It should show the formated partition of the existing drive, and an unformatted partition of the new drive. Right-Click on the unformatted partition, and select Format. It will give you several options. I don't have an unformatted disk to give you the options, but usually select NTFS, file compression if you like, and Quick Format is usually sufficient. However, in your case, due to the clunking - I would not choose the Quick Format option.

I would resolve the clunking first before investing a lot of time, and possibly misdirected faith, in that new drive.

Almost forgot, most controller cards can step down the drive automatically - especially since it sounds like you purchased a new controller card. These are supposed to be autosensing for backwards compatability. Limiting the speed on the controller seems like an unusual option, unless it is SATA II - in which case, I would let it run at the full 300 MB/S.

 

[Mav3000]

Thanks very much for the reply - it was really helpful. I switched my PC on last night to see the second SATA drive (the new SATA II Drive) not appearing in the SATA Controller BIOS or Windows. I plugged it back into the MoBo SATA port 0, and it still didn't show up.

I then plugged the SATA II Drive into MoBo channel 1, keeping my C: SATA I drive in the SATA PCI port. Windows sees both drives, and does clunk at all. In the course of my hasty back-up procedure, I reboot twice to check its all still ok - which it is - for now.

Still no idea whats going on, and the SATA BIOS adds more to the PC's load time, but at least it works - I just wish it was perfect like it was before.

 

[attrofy]

I would experiment around with the drives on the different ports. It is possible that one of the ports on the motherboard is failing - and contributing to the noise. Possibly an intermittent power issue. However, on the new SATA controller, it should be working properly. You are probably stuck booting on the Motherboard, unless Windows sees your SATA controller. Even then, you could always try conecting your C: drive tot he SATA controller and booting into DOS and seeing if you have any issues with clunking. That will hopefully narrow down weather it is drive or mobo.

 

[Mav3000]

Hi,

I have my SATA I C: Drive on the SATA Controller. This is seen by the PC and boots into XP OK.

The SATA II D: Drive was connected to the Motherboard, but kept clunking when in use. Today, it clunked then disappeared from Windows completely. I plugged this into my SATA Controller. The Bios sees the drive now, but doesn't report its capacity or model information unlike the C: drive.

I'm currently mirroring my important data onto both drives (backed most up on DVDs).

Both drives are running on the SATA Controller, on a new PSU, and still there is loud 'clunk' noises.

I'll try the SATA I C: Drive on its own after the data is copied to see if the SATA controller has fixed it.

1) Do I need two new hard drives? Is it a coinsidence?

2) Do I need a new Motherboard?

Thanks everyone for all your help so far.

Rich

 

[attrofy]

I would guess it may be coincidental - but I would also consider RMA'ing that new WD as soon as you get all the data backed up. This will tell you a few things when you install the replacement RMA drive. If it still clunks, I would venture that something else is causing the clunking. Most drives today come with at least a 3-year warranty. i would consider RMA'ing that 1st bad drive as well....

One option would be to purchase a different brand drive and see what you get. 120-160gb SATA drives are available around $50-$60 (80gb drives around $40-$50). This will eliminate any guess work as to intrinsic characteristics of WD drives.

Since you are backing up to DVD, I would address the issue ASAP. Clunking drives almost always lead to physical failure due to heads slamming against the platters.

I personally would RMA both drives, then reinstall Windows, and see what happens with the drive noises. If it is still clunking with a new RMA'd drive, or a different brand, then the only two remaining suspects are the SATA card or the built in SATA controller. I would try to isolate the drives on either the card or the M/B to eliminate one of the variables. If it is clunking on both, to me it sounds like it is in the drive (moreover, I haven't heard of other hardware causing the drives to clunk - but anything is possible and I have learned to never say "never" in this industry) - and probably coincidental that both are doing the same thing.

The only other variable would be if you have some kind of power adapter or other in-between device between your drives and the controller cards or the PSU. I would consider a motherboard replacement as a drastic last step, and would try to test on another PC if possible.

 

[Mav3000]

Thats excellent advice. The drives at the moment are working with minimal clunk, but anything that requires a lot of disk activity - large directories, totalling folder size etc brings on a clunk!

I'll RMA the drives (both are in warrenty and are shown as being RMA-allowed on WD's website wehn I query the serial numbers.

Thanks for all of your help,

Richard

 

[attrofy]

No problem. I hope it works out for you. When you find a solution, post back what the problem actually was - would be good to loko for in the future should a similar situation arise.