Hard Drives Clicking. Bad Power Supply?

[jliger99]

This morning we had a power outage. After it was restored, my computer would not boot. The drives made a clicking sound. My first thought was "One of my hard drives must be dying" (I have three). I removed each drive to find out when the clicking stopped, but in any combination the clicking persisted. If ALL three drives have no power, no clicking. Each drive powered separately clicks.

What are the odds of all three drives failing at once? Probably not very good.

My next thought was that the power outage damaged the power supply, in that none of the drives can get enough power to run.

Am I insane, or is this a valid diagnosis?

 

[Ketchup]

Remove your hard drives and turn on the PC.

How far does it get?

 

[jliger99]

Actually, it has allowed me to use one drive (the former D drive). If any others are plugged in, no boot, but lots of clicks.

 

[Ketchup]

Please clarify no boot: does anything come on the screen? Does it turn back off on its own? Is there is beep from POST?

 

[C1]

Classically 2.5" external HDDs click when there is insufficient power to them. I would imagine it is similar for 3.5"ers. Can you run any of the other drives as a single? Try to use a different PSU rail for power to one of the clicking HDDs to see if it works. Check the voltage reports in the power section of the BIOS. Substitute a known good PSU.

 

[denis280]

Please clarify no boot: does anything come on the screen? Does it turn back off on its own? Is there is beep from POST?

This.. and having 3 hdd going bad at the same time would be like winning the lottery jack pot. What brand and model psu is it.my feeling tell me the psu is faulty.

 

[Steltek]

I agree - I suspect you either have a bad power supply, or your motherboard is dying.

 

[jliger99]

I have finally been allowed to redo the one working drive. It will boot into Windows now, but if either of the other two drives is plugged in, the machine will POST and sit around trying ti find the second/third drive while the drive itself will click non-stop.

The power supply is a Corsair TX650.