Failing Hard Drive?

[naza911]

I got a problem in trying to work out for sure if my hard drive is

failing. Problems began a few weeks ago when the 160GB Maxtor Drive

began to make a sort of grinding noise. Just to help you out a bit,

its the sound that happens after the three clicks in the sound clip.

 

http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/Head_damage%202.wav

 

 

There was not as such clicking, but just a loud sound. I know in

normal operation drives do make this sound, but this was much louder.

Anyway, I did a defrag of the had drive and it went away. Today it

came back, I straight away got all my data of the drive. During which

it made the sound not all the time but at some files, sounded rather

random. I left the data on the drive and did a disk check in DOS. At

the stage 2(Verifying Indexes) it made the sound at around 30% and

80%, everytime( I repeated the check a good few times). So then I wipe

and formatted the disk again. Ran the Seatools Program and did all the

tests, it passed all of them. So now I put some data on the drive and

do the the same check on the disk. I can hear the sound but I would

say that would be normal operation. HDD Life reports 55% Health, with

all SMART Tools reporting everything is fine.

Pasting the SMART info was messy, so I upped a SS.

 

 

http://i35.tinypic.com/ve96s9.png

 

 

The HDD was brought in February so still in warranty made by Seagate

although branded Maxtor. I now cannot get it to make the sounds as it

did before, I have done benchmarks and read/writes test's practically

for the last 4 hours, but all seems fine.

 

So was the sort of sound I am reporting just due to messed up file

system, which was messing with the head? I did do many full chkdsk's

with the data, before the wipe, I want to be fairly sure there is a

problem before sending the drive away and wasting money, if they claim

there is no fault.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

What were the results in plain old chkdsk in command prompt Naz?

[Tootech]

Hi Naz,

 

Just to put this in perspective - do any of your other drives make that noise ?probably not.

 

I do think that a drive can function correctly whilst starting to fail mechanically. All of the actual disk sectors may be ok, but the bearings, and head mechanism may have faults developing. Seatools won't pick it up if all still functions correctly.

 

Also, it seems it didn't always make that noise, which is another indicator that something has changed.

 

Listening to the sound clip, it does sound poorly, maybe time will tell.

 

Personally I wouldn't trust a disk that has become intermittently noisy. SMART doesn't always pick up disk faults and so for what they cost I would replace it and remove the possibility of causing future problems.

 

Tootech.

[naza911]

All I am worried about is if I send it back, they will say there is no fault as this problem does not occur all the time. In terms of SMART, it would suggests that the hard drive is perfectly fine.

[naza911]

It completed without any errors.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

No bad sectors or anything?

 

Grinding noises don't sound good to me mate.

[naza911]

Just to update the drive has now failed. Although it does not look mechanical more electrical. Started up the PC today and the first thing I get is a puff of smoke, and the dead drive.

[Tootech]

Don't think they'll be able to claim "no fault" now Naza:)

[Dalo Harkin]

Its toast - something is scratching internally - proably one of the platters - time for a RTM

[naza911]

Just fitted in the replacement drive and I am a little worried by what is it tell me, particularly the Seek Error rate.

http://i38.tinypic.com/2ro5ixj.jpg

 

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just been installed not even initialized by Windows

[Guest Wolfeymole]

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just been installed not even initialized by Windows

 

What's going on here Naz

 

Where are you running a benchmark on a brand new drive from?

 

Why don't you just dump the old drive that went up in smoke and fit the new one and re-install Windows?

[naza911]

What's going on here Naz

 

Where are you running a benchmark on a brand new drive from?

 

Why don't you just dump the old drive that went up in smoke and fit the new one and re-install Windows?

 

The HDD was from a Retailer, I could have sent it back to Seagate and waited for them to send the replacement, but I thought I might as well go to the store and see what they say. They tested it and gave me a brand new replacement. The Benchmark is for the new drive that they gave me.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Yes but what your saying now does not correspond with what you said in post #10.

 

Just fitted in the replacement drive and I am a little worried by what is it tell me, particularly the Seek Error rate.

This is basically within the first 15mins of installation, and after running the benchmark test on HD Tune. There was nothing on it, just been installed not even initialized by Windows

You are intimating that they ran a benchmark test whereas it seems to me it is you who are running the test.

 

Again I have to say I am more than confused as to what is going on here Naz.

 

Why do you not simply install the drive and re-install Windows?

[naza911]

Yes but what your saying now does not correspond with what you said in post #10.

 

You are intimating that they ran a benchmark test whereas it seems to me it is you who are running the test.

 

Again I have to say I am more than confused as to what is going on here Naz.

 

Why do you not simply install the drive and re-install Windows?

 

Let me rephrase the whole post 10. I had just got the drive and fitted in the new replacement that was given to me. The dead drive had been given back the the retailer. After Installing the drive, and starting the PC, I did a benchmark on the drive. I then looked at the SMART Info of the drive, at this point 15 minutes had passed. I had not formatted the drive or anything. All the testing was done by me at home.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Right let's get this right.

 

Your running the benchmark software HD Tune Pro?

 

Would this be correct?

 

If this is correct then the software which is an executable file must reside on an operating system or be running from one.

 

I have to ask again how you are managing to run a benchmark on a hard disk drive that does not even yet contain Windows.

 

Have you hooked the new drive up as some kind of secondary drive?

[Tootech]

Naza,

 

Forget HDTune, if you don't understand the information it shows, why use it?

 

Look here for SMART info defintions, note the additional info on Seagate seek error rate.

 

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

Also, consider that as your drive was only powered for 15 mins or so, it will still be warming up. That means that the drive components will be expanding, at different rates, and it will not yet be stable.

 

SMART information isn't the easiest to decrypt, even different drive manufacturers have a different take on some of the data, and use different names for it.

 

Be happy you have a new drive, make sure SMART monitoring is switched on in the BIOS and just use it.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I still want to know where he's running this software from.

[naza911]

I still want to know where he's running this software from.

 

The Failing Drive was not the Windows Drive, I only ever used it as a 'Data' Storage Drive. HD Drive Pro is running on the other Hard drive.

Hope that helps.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

It would have helped if you had said that in the first place Naz.

 

Initialise the drive and format it ok.

 

Like Tootech said forget about all these snappy hard drive management bits of software, 9 times out of 10 they are worthless.

[Dalo Harkin]

Agreed - all you need to worry about is if the drive works or not - the only diagnostic tool you need for drives is the inbuilt windows one!