Hard drive ticks when laptop is using battery

[am9518]

I have a dell XPS 17 (L701X). When it runs on battery the hard drive ticks loudly. I've gone through all the power options to make sure there are no differences between the battery profile and the plugged in profile. Any suggestions?

 

[Ubrales]

Welcome to Tom's hardware Forums!

Ticking or clicking sounds are usually early warning signs of hard disk failure.

First, backup your entire computer; OS, data. Then do a cloning operation on the hard disk and replace the hard disk with the newly cloned disk.

Use Apricorn's Drivewire for cloning. It is simple to use and effective.

http://www.apricorn.com/products/notebook-hard-drive-upgrade-kits/drivewire-ide-pata-sata-to-usb-hdd-adapter.html

 

[am9518]

Thanks! I thought that too. It's a brand new drive. I'm on my 2nd Western Digital Scorpio Black wd5000bpkt since January 2011 when I got the laptop. Dell wouldn't replace the original drive that was having the exact same behaviour since the drive wasn't completely dead yet so I just bought a new drive and replaced it myself since my data is worth a lot and couldn't afford to have a down day with my laptop while I rebuilt it from a dead drive.

Would you have any clue why the drive only ticks when running on battery? Could the laptop HD controller or laptop voltage/current regulators from the power supply be killing the hard drives?

 

[Ubrales]

Take the battery out and then check the voltage. It should read 19.0 to 19.4 Volts. Since all this is happening only on battery operation, I tend to suspect the battery voltage. Maybe some dead cells.

And you are absolutely right! Your data is worth a lot more than any drives. I hope you are diligently performing backups on to an external drive.

 

[am9518]

Best answer selected by am9518.

 

[Ubrales]

Thank you!