Hardware problem - disk thrashing, cannot always boot

I have an intermittent problem with my PC. The problem occurs every 6-10 weeks and When it occurs, it lasts for a few days.

When the system boots, the disk 'thrashes', ie: make horrible rattling noises. Sometimes, the disk seems to switch off with a click, so its like:

rattlerattlerattlerattle CLICK <silence> CLICK rattlerattlerattlerattle CLICK <silence> etc

Sometimes the systems boots very slowly, but the disk noises continue, and the PC works slowly (so today I booted the PC after 5 tries, and it seemed fine, so I didn't touch it, 30 mins later, the disk start making the noises again) , but sometimes the PC won't boot at all, and an error occurs saying the system disk has failed.

It takes many times to boot the system properly then the system boots ok and functions fine (no noises), though has crashed very occasionally.

The problem may reoccur over 2-3 days, then disappears so the system runs fine for another 6-10 weeks. The PC is about 6 months old, it is an ES (Ei-system), 3.2 Gh with 256M RAM running XP. I've tried reinstalling XP and there is not much else on there (firefox, musicmatch, office)

It seems at first like a disk problem, but despite the fact that the PC says the disk has failed (which in my experience makes it unusable) it always comes back fine. But on the other hand, I can't think that it is a system process, because it starts before it has booted.

I'd be grateful for any ideas or things I can look at.

 

in my experience whenever a drive starts go *whir-CLICK* and the like it is time to back up your data because soon you wont be able to boot back into that drive. The other thing to check is that all of your power connectors are in securely... if the drive is getting an intermittent power signal it can cause it to spin up and then suddenly stop. But intermittent boots and clicking noises usually result from the platters hitting something or one the the bearings starting to fail.

 

I concur with Lanfear. If you know the make of the hard disk then download the image file for the diagnostics, and test the disk.

Hard Disk Analysis Tools - Major manufacturers