I don't like that sound...

[celeritas]

On shutting down my PC, my Western Digital ATA66 18GB drive makes 3 loud clicking noises before the computer turns off. The racket sounds just like when HD's have physical damage...

The weird thing is that the drive sounded fine before I installed a Promise ATA100 HD controller card, and the other HD connected to it is perfectly happy. Also, it's strange that the WD clicks the same number of times every time... Other than the shutdown sound, the drive runs great and surface scans show nothing wrong with it. Yes, both drives are using ATA66 cables and have ATA66 properly enabled, etc. Each drive is master/single on its own chain...

Ideas? Thanks.

P.S. I'm using b32 promise Win2k drivers, but only b17 bios for the card itself. I just found what appears to be a b27 bios on their ftp site; I'll see if that does anything...

 

[Killbat]

Have you tried power cycling the drive without the IDE cable connected?
It may just be the ordinary sound of a HDD losing power. ?

 

[celeritas]

I haven't tried that yet, but if you heard this sound you'd agree that it's far from ordinary...

I flashed the Promise ATA100 card to b27, and it just made things worse. Clicking on shutdown is still there (actually, it's 4 clicks -- if that matters), and now on boot-up the card detects both drives as "PIO4," not UDMA66 like it used to... Looks like I'll be flashing it back tonight.

I re-ran WD's and Seagate's ATA66 utils, and both say the drives are in ATA66 mode; should I pull/re-seat the Promise card and/or unplug the drives and cycle power before attempting to re-flash? Thanks.

 

[celeritas]

Any more ideas? I cringe every time I hear the clicking. I can't imagine any drive can survive that punishment for long...

Edit: I let WD's diag proggie check out the whole drive last night. It says everything's OK.

 

[R0b0tN1k]

Don't turn your computer off. Spinning up and down each day is more harmful than spinning them constantly.

 

[okydoky]

My WD drives have always made a click-clunk sound on shutdown since day one. They have been running for a year now without any problems. WD states the drives are parking when this particular sound is made. I don't know whether or not to believe them, but I have a warranty on each and back one up to the other. So my fingers are always crossed. I probably am thinking to much into this.....

 

[celeritas]

Any thoughts as to why the clicking started only after the Promise ATA100 card was installed? I'll plug the HD back into IDE1 on the MB to see if the noise goes away... Has anyone else found that flashing the Promise card makes it detect HD's as PIO4 instead of UDMA66?