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    Clicking Sound on Hard Drive for Bootup/Shutdown

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Lattice, Dec 5, 2008.

  1. Lattice

    Lattice Notebook Evangelist

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    I currently have a Seagate hard drive that began to have clicking sounds whenever the computer boots up. It's especially noticeable during the Windows "Loading" bar, where the loading bar would actually freeze while it clicks, and then starts moving again. It doesn't happen during normal file transfers or when I'm using any programs. I ran WD diagnostics (long and short test) as well as SeaTools (long and short), and it passed all SMART diagnostics tests. I tried to use the DOS version of SeaTools, but it refused to recognize the drive. Both WD and SeaTools recognized the drive fine when I'm in Windows.

    Anyone know what the problem might be? It sounds like there's something wrong with the boot sector, possibly? Any programs available to fix this? I've been sort of afraid to restart too often since the startup/shutdown process is the part where the hard drive starts clicking, so apart from chkdisk, anything else I could run?

    I didn't have enough disk space for backups of the files on this hard drive, so I had to back up onto tons of DVD disks. If re-formatting might fix the problem, I'll try it, but I'd rather do that as a last resort since transferring everything back from DVD is just too tediously slow.

    Thanks for any help/advice people can offer!
     
    Lattice, Dec 5, 2008
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  2. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

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    Hi.

    How long has it been making this strange noise, harddrives can suddenly fail for no apparent reason even when all tests say it is OK.

    You should really start looking for a replacement hdd, or an large external one to keep all your important data on.

    Regards

    John.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Dec 5, 2008
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  3. Lattice

    Lattice Notebook Evangelist

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    It started about a week ago. And yeah, I'm getting an external hard drive when I go back to my parents for Christmas, so I'm basically counting on this hard drive to last through one more shut down (when I leave)/start up (when I come back). I'm a bit more hopeful about it because it's not clicking during normal operation, just when it's starting up, but right now, my hands are pretty tied, the best I can do is backing everything up on my DVD disks.
     
    Lattice, Dec 5, 2008
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