Chances of this drive dying? (WD Clicking noise)

[aggressor]

Usually during activity, the HD seems to power on then off very quickly to make 2 quick clicking sounds. It varys, but as I was falling asleep, I noticed it happened 3 times while the computer was doing a disk defrag.

I've had the drive for 6 months now, and it has always done it. The drive works fine (for now). Is it worth risking RMA'ing this drive for another to fix the problem, while also having to worry about if the new drive is any good?

I have heard a lot of people have this problem (or used to), so I'm not sure if WD has fixed this with newer HDs or not.

 

[Mitzi]

Download the testing utility of WD's web site and run that, it should highlight any problems with the drive. Download Link.

Edit: URL added.

 

[aggressor]

It's a physical problem, the Diagnostics tool won't tell me anything

 

[Mitzi]

Originally posted by: aggressor
It's a physical problem, the Diagnostics tool won't tell me anything

The diagnostics performs various tests on the drive, the clicking noise could be caused by something the diag tool can pick up. It can't hurt to try.

 

[RReed]

If it is clicking at all unless it just trashing the HD , I would RMA it before it goes totally out on you.

 

[nboy22]

NAAHHH.. man, my drive does it too, and it's been doing it ever since i got it, it's no biggie to me, if it was powering off something would be going all messed up then, so it's not a problem.. my 120 8mb cache does it .. i doubt it is anything to do with ur drive dying, mine is 3-5 months old.

 

[Metalloid]

I would say it has a week or two left in it, but it will die for sure. I have never had a drive click on me and not die shortly after.

 

[daniel1113]

All 3 of my WB 120GB SE drives make the clicking noise when powering down (such as when shutting down or going to sleep). If your hard drive is making the same sound as mine, you shouldn't have a problem. I hope this helps.

 

[BZ]

I've had 2 WD drives that did the clicking and then promptly failed, sending me into a panic, and both very weirdly came back to life.

The first was a firewire drive and after failing it wouldn't even spin up until I tried removing the firewire case and plugging it into the IDE channel. now it works fine, and the WD diagnostics say its fine, but I don't trust it.

The second one was a regular IDE drive but I had it in one of those cheap removable drive trays. The other day the drive clicked a few times, the computer froze, and on reboot the drive wasn't recognized. I removed it from the tray and let it sit for a day and the next day it worked (without the tray - plugged directly into IDE) and I was able to rescue my data. I haven't run diagnostics on this one yet. I'm waiting until I get the rest of the data off.

I have so many things that have failed (CD burners too) in different computers that I wonder if it's something I'm doing - like static shock, or damaging the power supply or connectors.

 

[aggressor]

All 3 of my WB 120GB SE drives make the clicking noise when powering down (such as when shutting down or going to sleep). If your hard drive is making the same sound as mine, you shouldn't have a problem. I hope this helps

It sounds a bit like that, but an extra click and louder. Why would it be happening during activity though?

 

[hatboy]

I had an 8.4gb WD drive that made the clicking noise from the time I bought it. As you describe, sometimes when there was a lot of disk activity, the drive would make two clicking noises, about a second or so apart. It seemed like disk activity stopped between the clicks, but then started again after the second click. The clicking never caused any problems, except perhaps slowing down reading/writing a bit. The drive lasted about 3.5 years, which is pretty good from my experience for a cheap IDE drive. The clicking didn't seem to happen more often near the end of the drive's life, so I really don't think it was a sign of the drive going bad. I've read several posts from other people who had this same symptom with WD drives and most agreed that the clicking is not a sign of the drive dying. If I were you, I wouldn't be too worried about it.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

My WD 200gb was clicking and I ignored it. Then a couple months later stuff started corrupting so I RMAed it.

 

[BZ]

Is this just a WD thing?

I've read threads with people swearing they'll never buy another IBM drive, never buy another WD drive and so on. The only one's I've seen about clicking are WDs though.

The WD site has this to say:

Turn off your computer system and disconnect the data cable (IDE or SCSI) to the drive that is making the noise. Do NOT remove the power cable. Turn your computer system back on. If the clicking noise still persists, your drive is defective and needs to be replaced

Does anyone have any objective information about reliability by manufacturer? It seems like I see fewer threads like this about maxtor drives...

 

[Mitzi]

Well I have two WD 80Gb 8Mb cache drives and neither click (aside from the noise of the drives spinning down).

 

[Foghorn]

I've owned many WD drives, and the two that died had a clicking sound before they croaked. Back up now!

Any change in the usual sounds of your drive is a warning sign.

Good Luck!

 

[clicknext]

My WD does that. X(

 

[gujuguy007]

ya..i've had 2 wd harddrives crash on me and both had clicking sounds before they died. I did run the diagnostics on them...a code was displayed along with a number to call WD. I called WD and they said to send it in, but my warranty had expired so they would charge. I bought a new hard-drive instead. There's no harm in running the diagnostics, but most likely you will need to start backing things up soon.

My friend also had a Dell laptop with clicking sounds from a WD hard drive. He would end up having to defrag and the clicking would go away. This would happen every 2 weeks so he got a new hard drive.