Question Toshiba HDD Clicking Sound

[hohanos]

Hello, I have had my laptop for over 5 five years. I have replaced the HDD 3 years ago. I have just noticed that the HDD makes an audible ticking sound when it is writing, mainly. For example, the ticking happens every 3-15 seconds when I am downloading something. It also does clicks (less frequent) when reading (something between 10-30 seconds. Sometimes the drive does not click at all on reading.

The problem is I always used an A/C unit (which covered all ambient sounds), so I just noticed this now in the winter (no noise at all). I do not know if this is normal or not. I have used HD Tune Pro and CrystalDiskInfo both and SMART reported "good" on both.

I had another issue with the laptop. I do not know if this is connected to the HDD or not. The DVD drive which does not read any discs at all, keeps ejecting without me going near it. If I push it back it ejects endlessly. I do it like 5-10 times before it stops.

I would appreciate your feedback. Thanks.

P.S. The HDD operates silently if it was not for those ticks/clicks. I know what data access sounds which are continues unlike those ticks.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ticks and clicks are a problematic symptom for HDD diagnosis because using them as a diagnosis mainly relies on prior experience of how the drive normally sounds.

I'd probably consider the noises under the following conditions:

HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS: If there is a noticeable delay every time one of these clicks occurs (for example, while Process Explorer with elevated privs to monitor disk I/O, you're noticing a reasonably consistent I/O transfer rate, then a click occurs and the rate drops to zero for a good ten seconds or very likely a lot longer), then it's probably a dodgy disk. Often the whole system or at least dependent apps will stop responding normally when a disk misbehaves in this way.

Mildly suspicious: Drive is completely idle (according to Windows) and makes a seriously loud noise for no apparent reason.
---

You've checked SMART data, that's good.

I'd also look in the Windows Event Viewer (run eventvwr), go into Windows Logs > System (though 'custom views > administrative events is also helpful as it filters to show only warnings/errors, though even a brand new Win10 install is typically littered with warnings/errors of other sorts) and look for:

disk warnings/errors
ntfs warnings/errors
<storage driver name e.g. iastor / storahci / amdsata > warnings/errors

If you find some, do they coincide with the times of the dodgy disk noises? Also, if you find some, do they point at drive letters (or disk number, see 'Disk Management' app) corresponding to the dodgy disk?

When diagnosing a dodgy disk, I normally try to find multiple bits of supporting evidence. For example, SMART data occasionally is wrong (I've seen a drive with 8000 alleged bad sectors that hasn't skipped a beat in normal operation, though if it was my drive I'd probably still not trust it!), event log errors could point to a dodgy cable or storage driver, I've explained drive noises already, and Windows not booting from a potentially suspect disk could have a million other reasons, but say if you have a machine that's unable to boot Windows and the drive makes dodgy clicks every time the system tries to boot, I'd be pretty confident that when I pull the drive and connect it to my own PC, it's going to act in a similarly dodgy manner.

 

[hohanos]

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question, mikeymikec. I tried copying a large file and two times when the HDD was maxed at read, I did not hear a single click. I saw the LED for the HDD always flashing at 90%. As soon as the transfer finished (a few seconds after it was done), I received a single click.

I have noticed that in downloading a file, the HDD LED does not flash that much (I would say 10-30%). My download speed is 1megabyte per second. So, I think I can deduce that the clicks happen on low-moderate disk access.

I have used System Explorer and monitored the IO. I noticed gaps of 1-2mm in size on the large file transfer. Though, the transfer did not stop during those nor I heard any clicks. The speed started at 40mb then dropped to 28mb after half the file was copied. I copied from my second partition to the first partition on the same laptop drive.

I looked into Event Viewer and did not find anything regarding HDD at all. I am using Windows 7, by the way. Is it maybe because I am using a laptop instead of a desktop?

 

[mikeymikec]

A download rate of 1MB/sec is very little work for a modern HDD so there would be very little notable activity. You'd need to do a file transfer via a bus that supports bandwidth speeds that would challenge a modern HDD, so SATA or USB 3.0. I'd say that USB 2.0 would do at a pinch because if a HDD can maintain a reasonably consistent 25-40MB/sec then chances are it's not dying.

My instructions for the event viewer are the same on all modern versions of Windows, anything Vista or later (so yes, Win7 is included).

One other thing is that there could be problematic sectors on the drive, so it may be the case that when a particular file is read or written to that you experience problems, but also that if you had problems creating a file of a certain size, then that file may need to be removed from the drive in order to stand some chance of the dodgy sector(s) being re-used.

 

[Steltek]

Toshiba probably has diagnostic testing software you can download from their consumer hard drive support website that might give a little more detailed information about the drive. Worth checking on their support website.

The DVD drive sounds like it might have a bad eject switch on it, though it wouldn't hurt to see if there is a driver or firmware update available for it on the laptop manufacturer website. If it is truly defective (which happens), you can probably get a cheap replacement that will fit at Amazon or Newegg, or even on Ebay (at worst, you might have to swap the drive faceplate from the old one to the new one, but it usually isn't hard to do).

If you no longer use the DVD drive, you may also (depending on the model of your laptop) get a caddy to allow you to replace the DVD drive with another SATA drive in your DVD bay as a second disk. You could get an SSD, clone the HD to it, then move the HD to the caddy as extra storage if you need it.

 

[hohanos]

Thanks for the information guys. It is much appreciated.