external HD (WD2500KS + SATA2 box)

[tomchook]

hello,
i just bought an internal HD (Western Digital WD2500KS) and a SATA2 box (standard box with no fan), so I can use it as an external drive. actually everything is working just fine. I just have a few qestions:

1. it make some noises. it think these are normal sounds, because it's how my old computer used to sound like (now i plug it to my new laptop, which is much more quite than the HD)

2. always before i disconnect it, i do it by "remove hardware safely", and only then i turn the power off. when i turn it on and off it make a "strong" sound. is that ok? is it better if i just leave it on all day (for a few days like i usually keep my computer on)? because normally i only backup my stuff on this external HD.

3. it happend 2 times already, that during file transfer my computer got stuck (i think because of a problem with the computer itself). the I just rebooted my computer and everything was back to normal. is there a way my hard drive is messed up now? is there a way to check it?

i'm just worrying like that because it's new and i don't want to cause a short circuit, or to ruin it...

i'd appreciate your help!
thanks!
tom

 

[gigabyte1024]

1. some noises from a hard drive are normal, it does have spinning platters and a moving actuator.

2. the strong noise could be the head 'parking' that's normal, however it's hard to gain a good understanding of noises on an internet forum.

3. If you can still access your data all is probably well. You can run a check disk on the drive like this: click start, run, type "CMD" press enter. In the shell box type "chkdsk x:" where x is the drive letter.