Fujitsu drive ?clunking? several times a minute.

New Macbook Pro, 160GB 5400RPM Fujitsu drive.

Several times a minute I get a “clunk” sound from my drive. It’s pretty quiet-I only hear it in a near silent room. I’ve got it set to never spin down the drive, so it’s not that.

I have activity monitor going, displaying drive usage, and it seems to “clunk” a few seconds after the usage drops to zero. I’m guessing the drive automatically parks itself or something when it’s not reading or writing. I’ve read some random threads on the internet with other people with clunking Fujitsu drives. Just wanted to see if everyone else’s does this too.

 

i definitely hear a noise when loading and such, but its just normal HD noise

 

This is different from normal reading/seeking noises. It's a definite "clunk" (though a quiet "clunk"). It only happens when it's NOT reading/writing...like a few seconds after it quits doing anything.

 

I have the same system, but have not heard anything from the HD.

 

Same model drive too? Mine's a Fujitsu MHW2160BHPL (5400RPM, 160GB).

 

if it is when it is no longer reading, it is prolly parking the heads.

 

This is possibly a stupid question, but doesn't the drive have to be spun down to park the heads? And if it does, does that mean it's spinning down even though I have it set to stay on in the preferences?

 

i believe that they move off to the side so that they are not even sitting over the platters and get locked there. that way if it gets a hard shock, they can't contact and scratch the platters.

 

If it is making a distinct clunk noise, take it back to apple.
One such clunking noise is generally called "the click of death" and means that the HD is dying, I think it's usually due to a bad bearing (not sure tho). Might also be nothing, but losing pics and docs is not fun.
BTW, back all your important data up to an external drive or DVD.
Always the chance of a faulty unit. Just go have it checked ASAP

 

I had the same sound from my Fujitsu 160GB, and even switching it to my new Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm, the sound is there every few seconds driving me nuts. Not sure what the deal is. It's like the drive parks its heads at totally the wrong times, causing the clunking.

Anyone come up with any solution? It's really quite annoying.

 

I have this on my Fujitsu 60 GB drive which is now 5 years old and still working well. And still clunking. It doesn't do it very much, but the same way you describe, it makes this sound when not reading/writing data. It's a pretty loud sound, and in the beginning I was convinced the drive would die.

If you get this a lot while reading/writing, I would return it. If you get it rarely it might just be normal for this drive. The 60GB drive is still working fine in my ancient Titanium Powerbook.

WilliamG, my 7K200 did not make this sound. It was very silent with just occasional normal HD noises. But as mentioned in another thread, it had a complete failure 2 weeks ago with 100% data loss.

 

No it's not when reading/writing. Only at idle. *sigh* turn the music up louder?

Sorry to hear about your drive failure.

 

no noise here with my 200 7200!

 

*sigh* Well then I've no idea. It's not even that noisy, and depending on how loud the fans on the Macbooks are, you might not even hear it. The Macbook Pros are pretty quiet (quieter than the MBs?), so perhaps that's why you don't hear it. I like to think that it's more of a software issue of some sort that both my Fujitsu stock drive and my new 200GB Hitachi both do it. I just can't believe nobody else hears it. Sometimes it will clunk 4 or 5 times in a row with less than a second in between each clunk. I know it's parking its heads. I know that's what the sound is because I've heard it on loads of 2.5" drives in the past. I'm just not sure why two drives would do it so often in Leopard, and not at all in Windows XP via Bootcamp!

 

So the noise really is driving me a bit nuts, but I don't know what to do about it. Every few seconds of idle hard drive, it parks its heads. SOMEONE else must know what's going on here?

 

Hmm...I don't know why it would be so...just posting this to make sure you don't feel that people are ignoring you .

 

Thanks Sam. I really think Leopard is just broken at this point, as neither the Fujitsu or the Hitachi 200GB make any sound in Windows XP. In Leopard, though, ugh...

I ran Smartmoontools in Windows and it says my drive has unloaded (i.e. heads parking) 7118 times since I installed the drive last weekend. That's just insane!!! I know it's not the drive since I replaced the Fujitsu with the Hitachi for this reason, and again - no issue in Windows XP. If a fix isn't found, I'll be using Windows XP exclusively. Leopard is effectively killing my hard drive.

According to this site:

http://kiza.kcore.de/software/declunk/

Seagate drives are only good for about 300,000 loads cycles. I'd assume Hitachis are the same, which means my drive will last maybe 9 months the rate it's going.

SOMEONE has to be having the same issue, or know of some kind of fix for it....

 

Declunk isn't working for me. Ugh.

 

Gah this is insane. I thought I had properly installed Declunk, but when I wake up this morning my Load Cycles had increased from 7128 to 8577! That's almost 1500 load cycles. Leopard is killing my hard drive!

 

I bought this drive (aftermarket) from Newegg. Same thing happens. I only get it when the drive is idle, after having it on for 3 or 4 days. If I power down and reboot, it'll be all fine for another 3 or 4 days. I've already RMA'd one, and same thing happens.

You guys find any solutions?

 

This program works for me with my Seagate 200GB 7.200 rpm drive:

http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

 

Hi all,

I Googled my problem and came across this forum and thread. My MacBook 1G has just started doing that clunking thing today. I have a Fujitsu MHV2100BHPL drive and have tried both declunk and hdapm, neither of which work for me.

My main worry is that it is a sign of my HD dying. I've had my machine now for about 2 years and 4 months. I don't have Boot Camp installed so I can't try out Windows. I am not aufait with Unix either, so I have no idea how to use this smartmontools thing.

Has anyone had any luck with this?

Thanks!

:-Joe

 

for OS X; never used it myself, but seems to be recommended by many mac fans
http://smartmontools.darwinports.com/

cheers ...

 

Thanks, but again it's not GUI and it looks way to Unixey to even contemplate looking at... I can't even work out how to download the thing!

 

true, maybe that was why i never used it myself. I personally would just get another drive, super-duper it, and use the current as a back up

cheers ...

 

Already looking into buying a replacement my current one is 100GB - at the time, that was higher than normal spec for a laptop, but already it's pretty low so I've been thinking about getting a bigger drive for a while.

The main thing is you're confirming my assumption that the noise means the drive is on its way out... So yep, SuperDuper! sounds like the way to go... At least if it did go right now I have all essential data backed up using Time Machine.

Can I ask though, how do I get SuperDuper! to copy one drive to another when I have no 2.5-inch SATA enclosure?

 

well, put it this way, investing in an external 2.5 sata housing is worth it, and must be part of mac usage (my personal feeling). And so far this is the best way to superDuper it. Remember, you can use the housing afterward with your "old" drive as a backup

cheers ...

 

Unfortunately this is getting a bit expensive now... HD + SuperDuper full vsn + 2.5 sata housing = lots of money. I think I'll probably have to plump with doing a full Time Machine backup, then using Migration Assistant to copy it all back again. I've not tested to see how well this works, but in theory it should work.

 

^^ you dont need the full version of SuperDuper. The free offered version will do the job just fine.

cheers ...

 

Cool - for some reason I thought that the free version didn't allow you to do that. Also a 2.5" casing seems to cost only about £6. So perhaps this won't be so bad after all.

Are there any instructions online for how to actually do this?

 

enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp47AQinUM8

cheers ...