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    Vaio SZ - Hard drive making a loud whirring sound

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by Inaamace01, Nov 9, 2009.

  1. Inaamace01

    Inaamace01 Newbie

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    Hi everyone,

    I have a Sony Vaio SZ330P I bought 3 years ago. A couple of months back, I started hearing a loud rackety spinning sound from the machine. I thought it was a dusty fan so didn't really do anything besides blowing into it. Nothing really happened. Then one morning, turned on my laptop and just got a blue screen saying the sysconfig file was missing or corrupted. The computer just wouldn't load in normal or safe modes but the whirring sound would still start up again.

    I took it to a computer repair shop and the guy said the hard drive was almost gone, that he could hear things shaking in it so he replaced it with a brand new one and I got him to clean out the fan too. He transferred all the stuff across onto the new hard drive but after only a couple of hours I started hearing the same noises from the new hard drive and still had a few issues when starting up.

    I took it back to him 2 weeks later just in case things got better in that time, which they didn't. The guy had a look at it more thoroughly and said he may need to reinstall windows vista and that the new hard drive he put in had gone faulty! Something about the bearings...In any case he has now put in a third hard drive, the computer is no problem at all BUT the loud whirring sounds still turn up from time to time, especially when starting the machine from cold or when it is processing something big. Anyone know anything about this?

    Any help would be well appreciated!!!
    Thanks in advance.
    Inaamace
     
    Inaamace01, Nov 9, 2009
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  2. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Hmmm, this sounds strange...
    Is it a whirring sound or a clicking sound?

    If its clicking it may be the HDD working... Can you also find out which HDD it is?
    Use Crystal Diik Info - http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en - to find that out.
    It ill also give you the SMART data which is self diagnostics built into the HDD.
     
    DetlevCM, Nov 9, 2009
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  3. Inaamace01

    Inaamace01 Newbie

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    Hi Detlev,

    It's more a whirring sound, not clicking. It sounds very mechanical and it gets louder the more work I do. In any case I've just installed the software you recommended and here is the screenshot. Hope it helps.
     

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    Inaamace01, Nov 9, 2009
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  4. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    160GB WD Scorpio Blue...
    http://www.wdc.com/de/products/products.asp?driveid=513

    Smart Data looks OK - which is no guarantee the drive won't fail, but often a good indicator.

    Else, the drive has a free fall sensor... its also a mobile drive so it should be reasonably tough in terms of surviving travel.

    I'm at a loss here...
     
    DetlevCM, Nov 9, 2009
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