Rhythmtic clicking from hard drive and freezing computer

Every once in a while the harddrive of my Acer TM8204 wlmi starts clicking in a rhythmic fashion, and everything freezes, and I have to turn off the computer manually. Then, when I try to start it, the clicking starts again at the windows loading screen, and it won't boot. Safe mode works, then when I restart into normal mode, it's fine.

This happened on my old IBM, and the tech guys at school said I needed to replace the harddrive. I wouldn't mind this so much on my computer now, a faster or more spacious harddrive would be nice.

Here's what it has: 120 GB 5400rpm SATA HDD. If I buy a new harddrive, what exactly do I need in terms of SATA connection and all that?

EDIT: It just did a disk check and it did all kinds of repairs and replacements... I've never seen it do that before.

 

Sounds like the hard drive is on it's way out!!!!!!
Backup your data...
Invest in a large speedy drive..

 

Ugh I really don't want to reinstall Vista for the third time this year... but I'll like a new 7200rpm harddrive - is the performance increase noticeable? And is the swapping really easy - just pop old one out, new one in, boot vista disc, and go?

 

Yes!
I did notice a slight difference in overall performance..
I installed a Hitachi 200gig 7200k rpm 16meg cache drive..($200@ Newegg)
Vista install took me about an hour...(with phone call to MS)
Many more to set the unit up the way I like..
I think it is well worth the effort!


Yes, plug and play*...

*You do need to "load factory default in the bios" and reboot, so it will recognize the new drive size!!

My 2cents..
Tony

 

What exactly does that mean? I'll put the new drive in, start up the computer, boot from the Vista disc, where does "load factory default in the bios" come in?

 

Post up with new or old drive..
press F2 to enter bios during post...
in bios choose "load setup defaults"
then reboot..
enter bios agian and check for NEW drive specs..
very simple..
I did not do this at first and my 200gigs only was reporting 138...
reset bios..all is well!

TV

 

Thanks guys, a new 7200rpm 200gig drive is on the way - just a matter of time before something else breaks

 

Just bought a 200gig 7200rpm drive at Bestbuy (10 dollar off coupon)... I can already tell the speed difference, it's nice. Plus more space. Still ticked that my 1.5 year old harddrive took a dump, especially when my laptop hardly ever leaves the desk.

Overall my Acer has been a piece of crap. Oh well.

 

The great thing about sata disk you can plug them in any desktop with sata control and use program like ghost to clone them

just don,nt boot up to them

user bootable cd with ghost on it

 

The harddrive I bought came with a USB enclousure for your old hard drive... so now I have a 120gb 5400 rpm external hard drive, which is damaged nonetheless, but yea.