External hard drive occasional "clicking"

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:05:22 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:


That's why most HDD's only come with a one year warranty now.

Wrong. And Seagate has just gone up to 5 years.

That's just a recent change. Most were dropping down to one year.


Fraid that isnt the reason.

It's common knowledge that HDD's fail quite frequently.

The average lifespan of a HDD is supposed to be 3-5 years though.

Wrong again, its quite a bit longer than that.

Funny, that's what I just read on a tech site just a few days ago.
What's your estimate then? Ten years?


It might well show up in the SMART data for the drives.
Try http://www.lavalys.com/products/over...ng=en&pageid=1

Well, at least you gave me something of use even if you did have to go
about it a bit godlike. Thx.

"John L" writes:

My external WD hard drive has recently starting 'clicking' on occasion -
like resetting itself over and over. Usually it's quiet, works fine, but
sometimes it will just start clicking like some program is accessing it but
having problems. Reboot the system and everything is fine until next time
(it can be an hour, day, or even a week) until it happens again - no set
pattern.

There's something wrong with the drive, usually. Bad sectors can cause
this.

I really don't believe it's a hard drive malfunction as it just doesn't come
across like that. For what it's worth, virus checks show nothing - Norton
Disk, PC Tools and Hard Drive Mechanic, all say the drive is "A Okay" when
they check it...

Download Western Digital's freestanding drive test program, and test the
drive offline. If it passes all the tests (even the long ones), it's
okay. If it doesn't, the drive has a problem. Since the program boots
up itself, independently of your normal operating system, it effectively
rules out any OS problems, viruses, etc., when it tests the drive.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Aldwyn Edain writes:

I've ran chkdsk /r on both and no problems show up and both drives are
functioning normally. I'm thinking maybe it's just the second drive
parking the head for some reason because it's not in use most of the
time but I have power saving turned off so it shouldn't do that, or it
could be on its way to failure too. I just hope it's not my main 160gb
HDD.

When the clicking is a reset caused by a bad sector or something like
that, you can often map out the bad sector and continue using the drive
for years without failure.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"John L" writes:

This drive only lasted about 7 months - anybody care to recommend an
external backup drive with some longevity - something you've personally had
good luck with?

One of my Western Digital drives lasted only 60 days, so you're lucky.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Aldwyn Edain wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote

Aldwyn Edain wrote

That's why most HDD's only come with a one year warranty now.

Wrong. And Seagate has just gone up to 5 years.

That's just a recent change.

Correct, but they wouldnt be doing that if the average
life of their hard drives was really less than 5 years.

Most were dropping down to one year.

WERE, and it remains to be seen how many
will stick with 1 year now that Seagate has 5.

They know they are prone to failure.

Fraid that isnt the reason.

It's common knowledge that HDD's fail quite frequently.

Bull****.

The average lifespan of a HDD is supposed to be 3-5 years though.

Wrong again, its quite a bit longer than that.

Funny, that's what I just read on a tech site just a few days ago.

There's always some making stupid claims. Its just a
tad unlikely that Seagate would be stupid enough to
have 5 year warrantys if that was actually true, and
they have much more reliable numbers on the failure
rates than you do, or some unnamed 'tech site' either.

What's your estimate then? Ten years?

There is no nice tidy number.

It might well show up in the SMART data for the drives.
Try http://www.lavalys.com/products/over...ng=en&pageid=1

Well, at least you gave me something of use
even if you did have to go about it a bit godlike.

Just exposed your bull**** for what it was.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Well, at least you gave me something of use
even if you did have to go about it a bit godlike.

Just exposed your bull**** for what it was.



It wasn't "total" bull****. HDD's on average don't last past five years. All
magnetic media has a lifespan. Maybe Seagate has hit upon some technology
that has made *their* drives more reliable.Remember the fiasco with IBM
drive failures? Those things were dieing by the truckload on a daily
basis.Why did all the manufacturers all of a sudden go to only one year for
a while unless you bought one of their large cache drives? Seems suspect to
me.

Anyway, I already had Everest I just never got around to installing it. It
shows no errors under the S.M.A.R.T. test. Downloaded Seagate Seatools and
it showed no errors either but I only ran the quick test, will run the full
test overnight. Downloaded PowerMax for the Maxtor drive and the quick test
showed no errors also, now running the lengthy extended test on that drive
and is why I'm posting under a different name on this other computer.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
When the clicking is a reset caused by a bad sector or something like
that, you can often map out the bad sector and continue using the drive
for years without failure.

Yes, I know, so long as there are not too many of them. I remember Norton's
Speeddisk would show the bad clusters marked out.Microsoft's defrag doesn't.
Maybe I'll install that and see what it shows, I have the 2002 version
hanging around here somewhere. I'm running HDD manufacturer diagnostics on
both drives right now, man, is it slow and tedious too. Thx.

Sodium wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote

Well, at least you gave me something of use
even if you did have to go about it a bit godlike.

Just exposed your bull**** for what it was.

It wasn't "total" bull****.

Corse it was, total bull****.

HDD's on average don't last past five years.

Bull**** they dont.

All magnetic media has a lifespan.

Complete and utter bull**** with times like 5 years.

Have fun explaining how come I have plenty
of drives over that old that havent failed.

And the ones that do fail dont fail because
the magnetic media has failed either.

Maybe Seagate has hit upon some technology
that has made *their* drives more reliable.

Or maybe not and most drives
dont in fact fail in less than 5 years.

Remember the fiasco with IBM drive failures?

Yep, but that wasnt magnetic media failing, otherwise
it wouldnt have only been seen with the DeathStars.

And neither were the Fujitsu MPGs that failed at a very high rate
either. The MPGs failed when a chip on the logic card failed.

Those things were dieing by the truckload on a daily basis.

Thats overstating the failure rate.

Why did all the manufacturers all of a sudden go to only one year
for a while unless you bought one of their large cache drives?

Basically because that allowed them to sell the drives for a lower
price. Any warranty has to have the cost of providing the warranty
included in the price, even if none fail at all, because some will kill their
drives in various ways and some will return the drive when its fine.

Seems suspect to me.

Only because you dont understand how hard drives fail.

Anyway, I already had Everest I just never got around to
installing it. It shows no errors under the S.M.A.R.T. test.

What did it say about sectors reallocated ?

Downloaded Seagate Seatools and it showed no errors
either but I only ran the quick test, will run the full test
overnight. Downloaded PowerMax for the Maxtor drive
and the quick test showed no errors also, now running
the lengthy extended test on that drive and is why I'm
posting under a different name on this other computer.

OK.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage "John L" john_stlmo wrote:
My external WD hard drive has recently starting 'clicking' on occasion -
like resetting itself over and over. Usually it's quiet, works fine, but
sometimes it will just start clicking like some program is accessing it but
having problems. Reboot the system and everything is fine until next time
(it can be an hour, day, or even a week) until it happens again - no set
pattern.

I really don't believe it's a hard drive malfunction as it just doesn't come
across like that. For what it's worth, virus checks show nothing - Norton
Disk, PC Tools and Hard Drive Mechanic, all say the drive is "A Okay" when
they check it...

Is there a easy way to track down what program is accessing the drive when
it does this? Something along the lines of a good PC 'task monitor'
application?

Software cannot cause the typical recalibration "click". It is a special
head move the drive electronics do when, e.g., a sector mark is not found.
The purpose is to re-measure the mechanical properties of the head
assembly.

This can happen occasionally during normal operation, but a repeated
oaacurence in a short time (seconds) almost allways indicates that the
recal did not correct the problem.

I have seen this happening in drives thet did run too hot. In that case
the drive would probably not be damaged (yet). The diagnostic software
you mentioned cannot assess mechanical or electronic HDD problems until
they have gotten so bad thet they happen very frequently. One thing
that could help is a look at the HDDs error log with a SMART tool.
It should contain a log of the last few errors tha HDD experienced.
Youc an also run a SMART long self-test, which does a complete surface
scan, although it will not necessarily find anything. In addition
you should run WDs diagnostic utility, since it can access functionality
that is vendor-specific.

IF you fins nothing, I would advise you to enable automatic self-test
on the drive (if it has it) and run a long SMART self-test every
two weeks or so for a while. If your set-up supports it you should
also monitor the drive temperature, e.g. every 5 minutes into a log-
file. Otherwise you should look te temperature manually whenever you
notice further clicks.

Arno

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

Aldwyn Edain wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote

Aldwyn Edain wrote

That's why most HDD's only come with a one year warranty now.

Wrong. And Seagate has just gone up to 5 years.

That's just a recent change.

Correct, but they wouldnt be doing that if the average
life of their hard drives was really less than 5 years.

Most were dropping down to one year.

WERE, and it remains to be seen how many
will stick with 1 year now that Seagate has 5.

They know they are prone to failure.

Fraid that isnt the reason.

It's common knowledge that HDD's fail quite frequently.

Bull****.

The average lifespan of a HDD is supposed to be 3-5 years though.

Wrong again, its quite a bit longer than that.

Funny, that's what I just read on a tech site just a few days ago.

There's always some making stupid claims. Its just a
tad unlikely that Seagate would be stupid enough to
have 5 year warrantys if that was actually true, and
they have much more reliable numbers on the failure
rates than you do, or some unnamed 'tech site' either.


How about just using it (5y warrenty) as a selling point cause no one else
is doing it?

What's your estimate then? Ten years?

There is no nice tidy number.

It might well show up in the SMART data for the drives.
Try http://www.lavalys.com/products/over...ng=en&pageid=1

Well, at least you gave me something of use
even if you did have to go about it a bit godlike.

Just exposed your bull**** for what it was.