Odd Seagate Noises

[kohrn]

Hi:

Hopefully you can assist me.

I have a new Seagate 3.5" HDD (ST380811AS) that replaces a totally defunct one as my system drive. I am understandably a bit nervous about it, having spent far too long re-installing everything.

After the PC has been unused for a while, and I start up an application -- I often hear a soft 'beep' or 'tone' from the disk drive area of the PC. This 'tone' lasts a second, and occasionally there are two 'tones'.

I verified this with Seagate "SEATEST" Tools. There is an "Acoustic" test, which spins down the HDD and then starts it up with a keystroke input. The "tone" coincides with HDD startup.

I also ran the short and long tests with Seagate tools -- and no problems.

It does not correspond to any motherboard sound as described in the mobo literature.

I have turned off PC speaker; and I have not heard this type of sound from my 2-year old PC until after installing this new HDD. It does not occur if I go to the other two drives to get data after they have been dormant for a while.

Have you heard of something like this before?

 

[Souka]

My 100GB Seagate does that same thing when powering back up. It's been doing that for years. Kinda a dull-beeeppp....then the drive spins up.

My Samsung 250GB does the same thing, but its barley audible...


I won't worry about it....IMHO. Set your PC not to power down the HD so often if it bothers ya. If XP windows, Power Options under control panel and change the "Turn off hard disks to "never" or 30+ min.....

 

[kohrn]

Hi Souka:

Thanks for your info.

I plan to take disk images and then leave the drive in place.

Meanwhile, I have a warranty replacement for the old HDD on its way.

Hopefully, if the new one fails, I can quickly restore the disk image to the warranty replacement and be on my way.

Thanks, Ken

 

[kohrn]

Hi Again, Souka:

My motherboard is an ASUS P4P800SE.

It's literature does not mention any single beep-tones related to HDd operation. In fact, no single beep-tones at all except at boot -- and this beep ain't that beep.

Ken