Seagate Hard drive making strange clicking noises

I bought a Latitude E6400 recently and swapped out the hard drive with a Seagate 5400rpm 320 gig one. It seems to be working fine, but every so often it'll make sort of a "click-thunk" noise (sorry, bad/vague description I know but I can't really think of any way else to describe it), often followed by a system beep. Just recently it's started making a quieter and higher pitched clicking constantly while the drive is being accessed. Everything seems to be working fine still, but I'm worried about the drive failing. Should I RMA it? The clicking noise should be enough of a reason anyway, right? It's very annoying in a quiet room.

 

It is very normal for hard drives to make such clicking noises; the particularly loud ones are probably when the R/W heads are parked.

If you're convinced that the drive is not operating properly, don't return it right away; try this software instead to check for problems.

 

Also, see if there is an option to increase the AAM Value in SeaTools.
If not, you can use Notebook Hardware Control (only for 32-bit OS) to increase the AAM value to 255.

It fixed clicking issues for some WDC users.

 

This may help too, originally meant for Seagate 7200 but may work for 5400.

 

you are probably hearing the noise more than other users because your laptop is so small, and the vibration of the drive can shake the laptop more.
Is there any room in the harddrive caddy, to install small rubber grommets?

It would be beneficial to put rubber grommets between the harddrive and the caddy, or between the caddy and the laptop. The rubber will naturally absorb most of the vibrations created by the drive, so that will greatly help decrease noise from the drive

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

I have found Seagate drives in particular to be noisy. Went through several Seagate drives, all were terrible clickers.

 

Since i got requests, i uploaded the files here for stopping the clicking of the Seagate 7200.3. This file only works if it is your first internal drive:

http://rapidshare.com/files/148837447/7200.3_HDD_UNCKLICKER.zip.html

enjoy the silence ;-)

 

That program is AWESOME! After two seconds the clicking just dissapeared, like magic
excellent work Prema, reputation uuuup

dont search any further: this is the solution

 

I am very surprised that software can very quickly reprogram the drive to make it run quieter.
Very good prema, definitely worth some reps.

K-TRON

 

What worked with me was setting Hard Drive Acoustic to Performance in the BIOS settings.

 

It sure does work and it didn't even reduce the performance of the hard drive (I already had quiet mode on in the bios).

 

does the program to stop the clicks works good also on segate 5400rpm
160GB? i used the bios settings the performance didnt help aswell as setting it on quite mode, i have also disabled the indexing mode.
any other ways that wont ruin my HDD?

 

I cant seem to figure out how to use this file from PREMA.
My computer is not allowing me to open the .exe file.
Any ideas?

Also, how do you get into the BIOS settings?

 

I use EEEhddtray to stop the clicking of 7200.3 on my AAO. It also works with 5400.5 as well.

 

There are 3 files in the zip archive.
1. Unzip them
2. Run the hdparm installer (hdparm-6.9-20070516.win32-setup.exe)
3. Run unclick.exe

The clicking should have stopped by now.
You can create a shortcut to the unlick.exe into the windows "autostart" folder to run it directly on boot

 

Just for the record, programming the drive actuator to never park makes your drive much more sensitive to mecanical shock.

 

If it's one of those sounds like on this page then you are screwed.
If it's not that bad and you can work at the same time try this procedure: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking

 

Just wondering what the hdparm setting used in the unclick.exe script is.

Can I uninstall the HDparm program after I have used it and unclick to quiet my HDD? I assume the settings stay in the system.

If I wanted to reverse the setting, does changing the BIOS setting in the Dell Latitude e6400 for the AAM to quiet or performance reverse the settings changed by HDParm?

Does the unclick program the HDD to never park?

 

1. Can I uninstall HDParm once I have run the unclick.exe once.

NO, these drive settings are not permanent and will reset once power is not present or you shut down your system abruptly.
That´s why it is suggested to put a shortcut to the script.exe into the windows "autostart" folder.

2. What settings does unclick.exe actually change or does it simply alter the AAM value?

Seagate HDs do not support AAM (advanced acoustic management) but "only" APM (advanced power management) the hdparm comand for AAM is "-M" the comand for APM is "-B", this is what is used by the script that i uploaded.

3. Does it have any other effects on my HDD (e.g. parking the HDD heads; free fall sensor) etc...

Free Fall Sensor will work like before, but i do not know how the drive is parking its heads after APM is off. Depends on how Seagate programed it.
It should/may not park them at all.

4. If I wanted to reverse the change, how do I do it?
Just do not run the script and shut the system down for a moment. You can also set an other value in hdparm or install NHC, which will override the settings once started and make the settings there.

Note: You can not run this hdparm script along with the current version of NHC, because Seagate drives need an APM value of 255 to be quiet and NHC is limited to values from 0 - 254 and simply overrides what ever has been set in other software.
I contacted the author (manni) on this and ask him to allow 255 in his upcomming release to make hdparm obsolete.

LOVE

Prema