Samsung Hard Drive Making Odd Noise

The 160GB hard drive in my machine has, for the past few months, been making a very unusual sound. It's not that the noise it's making is any different from what it sounds like when it's working, except that it sounds...well...amplified.

It's as though one of the fans died in there, thereby allowing me to hear the hard drive better.

I'd checked the computer's innards after I moved a couple months back before first start-up in case anything had been knocked loose, and have checked since, but everything looks fine.

I'd have posted sooner, but it stopped for nearly three weeks, and now it's doing it again. The computer is nearly eight years old, so could it just be age catching up to it, or is it ready to kick the bucket?

 

Perhaps the screws attaching the drive to the cage have worked loose?

 

Do you mean the screws which hold the hard drive inside the tower itself? Sorry, but I'm a bit of a newbie to this. :-o

If you do, for some reason, this hard drive is held in place with two plastic tie wraps, neither of which have loosened. I'm assuming HP went with that because this computer wasn't even middle-of-the-road when new.

 

Whatever is on that hard drive, back it up before the drive dies. Odd noises from the hard drive is never a good thing...

Do you have any drive diagnostic tools you can run to get a status from it?

 

That's what I was thinking. I'm glad I've backed up everything on it.

Other than PC Doctor which came with this machine, if it can even detect anything hard drive-related, no, I don't have any other diagnostic programs. Would you happen to know of any good free ones?

 

Samsung does...

Most hard drive manufacturers offer diagnostic utilities for their products. I've never used Samsung's tough. Only Western Digital and Seagate.

 

The answer is simple..... hard drives are NOT supposed to make noise.
Be doubly sure it's actually the HD and not some other part, like a CD drive with a disk left in it. Or a cooling fan with a bearing failing.

Then just get a new drive. But for an eight year old PC, it may be better to just upgrade to a new PC. They are so cheap these days, it's not really worth messing with an old, slow and failing PC.

An eight year old motherboard probably won't accept one of the new LARGE hard drives anyway.

Just a thought,

The Shadow

 

Try a hard disc tool from the ultimate boot CD. It may help.

 

Any and every hard drive test tool puts a huge amount of stress on a hard drive.
Way more than normal operation.
If the drive is already compromised, that test could cause an immediate failure.
I only say that, because I've seen it happen.

I'd clone that drive to a new one ASAP!:confused
That is, if you can even get it through the cloning process without it failing.

Shadow :cool

 

Sorry for the late reply, everyone! Turned out it was good I'd gotten everything backed up, as the hard drive did die. Looks like I'm in the market for a new system.

@Mimsy: Thanks for the link - I managed to check the drive the day before it died with the program, but it said everything was okay. I somehow forgot to check Samsung's site for that very tool before I came on here to ask for help... :-oLOL

@The Shadow: Thanks for suggesting I buy a new system - I don't know what was keeping me thinking I should continue trying to keep my old one going. Guess I forgot how old it was. :-D

 

Hey,,,, I'm a professional computer tech and the last thing I ever want to do is flush a system. But again, hey, when they just get too old to cut the mustard, there's little to be done, but get something NEW and start again.

I've had to do that several times over the years and it's never a lot of fun, that is till you fire up the new system for the first time and experience the speed and functionality of the new hardware. That makes it all worthwhile.

I built my first PC system in (about) 1983 and I've had to scrap several systems since then, so I know what it's all about.

Believe me when I say, "newer is better".

Good luck to ya!

The Shadow :cool