Crazy hard drive behavior

[Joemonkey]

OK so i've had the western digital 120GB HDD w/ the 8MB buffer in my computer for about 3 months now, and since day one it has acted a bit strange. Let me give you an idea of what i'm talking about here.

Just a bit of background on me, i am a computer technician for a living... as in i work for a company that gets calls for broken/troubleshooting stuff, and i'm one of the guys they send out to fix it. (i just wanted you to know i'm not a n00b more or less)

Ever since i installed the thing, around every hour or so, no matter what i'm doing on the computer, it will make 2 clicks. These clicks sound to me kind of like spindle failure clicks, but it will make a "higher pitched" click, then about 2 seconds later a "lower pitched" click. They sound kinda like when your monitor gets signal from your video card on boot up and makes that "come on" click.

I never had a problem with the drive for a week or so, just the odd clicks. Then one day, the computer is locked up, and when i reboot the BIOS can't find the hard drive. So i unhook the power and IDE cable, plug them back in, reboot, and everything has worked fine for over 2 months since then (except i still have the hourly clicks)

Then yesterday, i get 2 lockups. The first one was a blue screen, and when I reset the computer it couldn't find the hard drive. I did the unplug-replug thing again, and it worked fine for about an hour. The other lockup then happened, and it was simply a hard lock. When i hit reset, BIOS recoginzed the hard drive, but after the WinXP startup screen with, the monitor just stayed black. I hit reset 3 or 4 more times with the same result, then when i hit reset again BIOS didn't find the hard drive.

i downloaded WD's diagnostic tools, and ran the short and long tests, neither of which found any errors. So, i started burning stuff like crazy in case the thing decides to totally crap out on me.

now my question is this: should I call or email WD and see what they have to say? most times if the HDD' manufacturer's diagnostics don't find a problem they won't let you RMA the drive right? what should i do?!

 

[Joemonkey]

bump

 

[TenaciousPee]

I've only had one WD hd (20gb Caviar), but it exhibited some of the behavior you describe. The 'clicks' you're hearing aren't from the spindle, they're from the armature. The hd armature is getting out of alignment and attempting to homing itself, which consists of it disengaging from the spindle, locking into home position and then unlocking out of it. Those are the two clicks you're hearing.
I'm not positive I got everything correct from a technical standpoint, but that is the only way I can describe it.


There could be several reasons why the armature is doing this.

1. The drive is too hot, causing the arm to move out of alignment in respect to the objective sectors its reading. Also, when hds get too hot, the sectors can become harder to read due to thermal expansion of the platters themselves. Some hds, after a certain amount of read errors will home the armature automatically.

2. Vibration, either from something else inside the case (case fans, spinning CD/DVD-ROM, PSU fans, you get the idea) or from the HD itself (due it being mounted poorly, etc.) can cause armature misalignment and subsequent rehomings.

3. The armature is failing. This is what happened to my WD hd.


Judging from your own words, it looks to me that the problem is steadily increasing in severity, leading me to believe that the source of the problem is #3. Now that that's out of the way, what should you do? I'm not aware of any diagnostic that can diagnose a failing armature. Its just as likely to fail running ANY diagnostic if it's failing at all. Furthermore, I doubt a diagnostic tool WD posts on their website would be robust enough to stay running in the advent of the problem manifesting itself. I assume the drive's under warranty so contacting WD and getting the RMA process started wouldn't be a far stretch as I'm sure they have encountered this problem before.

 

[Joemonkey]

you think they'd go for sending me the new HDD so i could ghost it over, then me sending them the bad one?

or will i get screwed over, have to send them mine, they try to fix it, return it to me if they can fix it or send me a new one if they can't, which will take like 6-8 weeks or whatever?

 

[TenaciousPee]

No, I don't think they'd send you another one so you could ghost over it. That would be a sweet setup for you, but with HD companies trying to lower their warranty costs I have a feeling we won't be seeing a policy like that any time soon.
You'd have to talk to WD about exactly how long it'll take, but doesn't 6-8 weeks sound a bit long? Fed Ex the drive to them = they take a week to get around to your RMA #, they Fed Ex it back... two weeks sounds about right. Then again, how much is your time worth? You could slug it out with WD while on the side, spend $70 or $80 on an interim HD (Seagate and Maxtor both sell 60GB drives in that price range).


And I doubt they'll repair it and send it back to you. The cost of diagnosing, fixing and testing the HD would cost more than just writing it off and shipping you a new one. Who knows, you might get one of those new 200gb models for your trouble...


or not...

 

[Joemonkey]

i know exactly how it will happen... i'll get the RMA#, ship my drive off 2 day thinking that will help, they'll get it, make sure it is bad (which could take more than a day), and find a refurbished drive to send back to me ground from antartica or something