Clicking hard drive = drive death?

T

toxin813

Gawd
Joined
Apr 9, 2003
Messages
532
Getting my roommate's PC hooked up to share our cable connection last night, it started making a clicking noise, then locked up. It was late so we gave up. Now today, it wont even boot up. Gets past the dell logo, makes more clicking noises, then says boot failed.

BIOS detects the HD, shows its size and everything, but it doesnt show up in the choices for boot devices. Checked the IDE and power connections, same problem. I popped in my WinXP cd, it told me that no hard drives were detected and setup could not continue.... damn.

Is the hard drive just failing? Im pretty sure it is. Anyone have any other ideas for me to try? Im thinking i should just tell him to call Dell about it, i dont know what else to tell him.
 
Find out the manufacturer of the unit, then download their utility set and run it. There is a high probability it's dead, but the fact that its firmware is coming up and reporting status on POST is a glimmer of hope.
 
Same exact thing happened to my slave drive and ended up taking it to a shop only to find it's broken and "unfixable." Guy tried to sell me a HD right after so maybe he's lying :rolleyes:
 
eLus1ve said:
"unfixable." :
Click to expand...

run the manufacturers diagnostic and see
contact Dell and see

but as a course of last resort
for data rescue not repair
would be the The Freezer Trick

My HDD Clicks
Proper Handling

Specifically the no bumping when operating
Fine Tolerances
and
Head Slap
Head slap is when the actuator arm/read-write assembly impacts the platter due to a shock such as a tip-over, a tap with a screwdriver, or an overly aggressive shove to get the drive into a bay. This can also occur if you try to scoot the box across your desk while it is running.
As a result of the impact, tiny indentations can be formed. The material ejected from this impact is scattered about the disc, and when the drive is powered up the heads will pass over this indentation and the ejected material. This can be the equivalent of running over a bowling ball in a go-cart traveling at Mach 813.
Click to expand...
 
My western digital 250gb started clicking alot and eventually would stop working in windows. i put it in the freezer for about 20min, installed a SMART untility and its now working fine.
 
p0lish said:
My western digital 250gb started clicking alot and eventually would stop working in windows. i put it in the freezer for about 20min, installed a SMART untility and its now working fine.
Click to expand...

Excuse me for my ignorance but what does putting the hard drive in the freezer do?

Some sort of ritual, actual proven method, what?
 
It causes the parts to contract. If something goes out of alignment or you have a ditch or two on there from head slaps, it may just give you the clearance necessary to operate for a few minutes. Odd that unit keeps running weeks after one freezer treatment.
 
ya i have no idea. maybe i bumped it and it realigned something. who knows im just glad it works
 
Could be, I've seen drives suddenly work after being hit with something solid.
 
I had a drive start clicking.. after a while the computer just started locking up like hell.. replaced the drive and everything was fine.. i even used the utility that Maxtor provides.. it found nothing wrong with the drive lol... I would take what manufacture utility software say's with a grain of salt (sorry for being cliche). I've heard of people freezing HDDs.. but as far as i know it's only meant to get a few hours of life at most, so you can backup stuff before you put it out of it's misery
 
clicking drive = failing/dead drive

If its under warranty, run the manufacturer's diagnostics if the drive detects and get an error code so you can RMA it.
 
I had 2 dead 30gb deathstars (75gxp if memory serves) and i swapped controller boards on them and one started to work. Needless to say it wasn't just the controller board that had problems, and the drive started acting up on me. I dropped it from a foot above the floor as a last resort (after the freezer trick failed to work) and it started working again ;D

I mean... if the drive's dead... why not? ;P
 
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