My Hard Drive Makes Mechanical Noises At Startup?????????

Hi,

I have built a new gaming pc a few months now, I noticed that my hard drive makes noises when I boot the system for a few seconds then it stops. I have games and personal data saved on my WD 1 TB PC Hard Drive - Blue and windows 10 is running from my Kington ssd drive. Is this a sign of a dying hard drive because hard drives shouldn't make that noise. I have ran disk check and found no errors on the drive, the drive is working fine. Should I get a replacement coz its still under warranty??????????

 

Yes.

 

download crystal disk and see what the output says. Will either read good, caution or bad.

 

I ran crystal disk here is the result

 

sometimes it can give false positives. If it is still under warranty I would definitely get a new one. I have only had bad experiences with really loud hdd's.

 

I think am going to get a replacement I have had many computers before never suffered from this issue, although the drive is healthy now it could go wrong in time to come, sound like a mechanical issue that could develop further.

 

Correct.
And CrystalDiskInfo, and other Disk Monitoring software cannot detect mechanical faults.

 

All hard drives make mechanical noises and typically lots of noise during boots. The issue is, how loud? And if the loud noises persist once booted?

And what kind of noise? Motor bearings, when worn or faulty make a rumbling or even grinding noise that you can even feel if you lightly put your finger on the drive. A corrupt drive or a drive where the R/W head stepper motor is failing or has been knocked out of alignment can make clicking noises as the R/W head keeps banging against the end-stops.

Without being to hear this noise in person, the fact you say the hard drive works fine after boot suggests it is fine - especially since chkdsk reports no problems.

Is this noise you hear now new? Or has it been this way since you built the computer a few months ago?

The problem is, if you send it back and they cannot find any problem, they will return the same drive and charge you shipping.

 

False alarm,
It turned out to be my cheap dvd drive which is making the noise and not my hard drive. After carrying out an investigation I found out that the problem is with the dvd drive my hdd drives are perfect and not making any kind of noise as they should be.
Note:
If you your hard drive is making any kind of noise at startup or even during read/write operation most likely it has a problem and you should back up your data and replace even if its working fine and even if the any testing software indicates that its fine. All new hdd are silent and should not make any noises no matter what speeds they run at.

 

I agree totally!

 

Sorry, but this is not true!

All hard drives make noise, period! There are two motors in every hard drive. The platter (disk) motor that spins (most commonly at 7,200RPM), and the stepper motor the moves the R/W head arm assembly back and forth across the platters. These motors vibrate and make noise! And with some computer cases, those noises can even be amplified as the sounds reverberate through the cavernous cavity of the metal case. This is exactly why better cases use rubber grommets for noise and vibration isolation.

Now whether or not you can hear that noise depends on many factors. These include:

• The noise suppression qualities of the drive's housing,
• The noise suppression qualities of your computer case,
• Ambient (your room or background) noise,
• Noise of other fans (and drives) inside the case,
• Your proximity to the drive,
• Your own hearing.

If you isolate any hard drive from all external sound sources or sound suppression devices, and your hearing is "normal", you can hear the hum of its spinning motor and the tiny ticks as the R/W heads move back and forth and become centered over the tracks. So I repeat what I said above, it all depends on how loud those noises are whether or not the drive might be having problems.

Hard drive noise is also exactly why many HTPC (home theater PCs) users use slower 4200 - 5400 RPM drives in their PCs - because slower drives tend to make a lot less (but not "no") noise. And of course current trends are to use SSDs in HTPCs because they make no noise.

Many high performance systems (an enthusiasts) use 10,000 RPM drives that definitely make some noise.

You are right about one thing there, however, and that is about backups. But that is true whether you can hear the noise your hard drive IS making, or not.

Anyway, I am glad you got it sorted out. And optical drives always make a lot noise when first powered up. And if you forget and leave a disk in there, they make even more. Thanks for posting your findings.

 

I agree with your one statement.All HDD drives make noise.Even the smaller factory laptop form 2.5.I have a few of them installed and they all so make noise.But you would have to put your HDD up to your ear to hear it.I have been using the 2.5 drives for a while now and makes a difference in noise level.The only thing i hear is fans.

The 2.5 bay drives are pretty fast and i very rarely have a slow down.The two reasons why i use the 2.5 drives is because one it saves space and give better air flow.And two I like the idea that the 2.5 drives has a less of a chance to bounce the header on the platter.

 

I never said they make a racket - unless they are failing. But also, the initial quality plays a factor too. Not all drives, even from the same maker, are created equal. Western Digital alone has at least 7 different 1TB drives, as seen here with warranties from 1 year to 5 years.

Not buying that one. If you drop or kick a drive, it does not matter if 5.25", 3.5" or 2.5", the chances the R/W will go crashing into a platter are the same. You can only hope the drive had already powered down and "parked" the heads over the safe "landing zone", or the drive was a more sophisticated model that could sense it was free falling (like a notebook flying off a table) and could quickly park the heads before hitting the floor (or wall!).

 

It depends on what is meant by "making noises." Spinning up is not making noises to me. click-click is noises to me.

 

You never owned a Maxtor drive, they always sounded like they were flying apart.

 

If you back the drive up, and the first drive lasts another 25 years, what have you lost? A bit of time. But on the other hand, if you do not back it up and the drive making noises stops, and you lose everything. What then? BACK UP THE DRIVE MAKING THE NOISE. (You'll thank me later.)