Hard drive makes "kerchunk" noise

[GrimCracker]

I've been happily hacking away with my new system for about a month now, but this morning I started to notice a "kerchunk" noise. I've heard it about four times so far this morning, and I'm pretty sure it's my hard drive. It's a Western Digital 80 gig IDE drive. I seem to be averaging one of these noises every half hour so far. Any thoughts on what this could be?

 

[JERR]

Usually when a hard drive makes an awful noise the drive stops working immediately. Try the WesternDigital diagnostics on it.WD support
Make sure its not a cable hitting a fan inside your system.

 

[GrimCracker]

Uh oh... I downloaded the Data Lifeguard software from the WD site and ran it on my drive. The drive passed the SMART test but failed the short test.

 

[GrimCracker]

Oops, I should have read the directions a little more closely on the web site. The online version of the diagnostics doesn't work in NT with drives 8GB or more (I assume this counts for Windows 2000 as well?)

I went and dug up the diag diskette that came with the hard drive and ran that, and it said that the drive passed the test, but during the test I heard a LOT of the kerchunk noises. I put my ear up close to the drive and it sounded like a click, then another click, and a faint spinning up noise.

 

[SpeedTester]

I'd RMA that drive in a hurry, I believe you got a bad one, Usually shortly after making a noise like the the heads will crash
making your drive useless. I could be wrong thou