[SOLVED] HDD Making loud noises under load, is it dying?

[Badankydank]

Hello,

I have had my PC (and HDD) for 5 months now and for some reason for the past two days, my hard drive has become quite loud when under load. I have googled around I found that this might be because it is failing, however, I am confused because it only makes the noise under load (a loud scraping noise) , yet the only thing I have on it is word documents. As well as this, as previously mentioned the hard drive is only 5 months old. I have run 2 separate trusted HDD testing software and they have found no issues. Just in case I have backed up all my files on the HDD to OneDrive. Is my HDD dying?

The HDD is a Hitachi 2TB drive - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitachi-Cache-7200RPM-Internal-Desktop/dp/B012AW09JC

Thanks in advanced, Badankydank

 

[Ralston18]

A noisy hard drive is never a good sign.

Very good that you backed up your data but do ensure that you can truly recover the files and that the files are readable.

The backup process may have appeared to work but not wait to find out....

In the meantime get another drive set up as a replacement.

You might try cloning the HDD to a SSD as a starting point. Once the clone is made, swap out the HDD and install the SSD.

Hopefully the SSD will work. Then verify that all data on the SSD and previously backed up is indeed intact.

Then RMA the HDD.

However, remember that anything you do may cause further HDD damage and loss of data.

 

[mdd1963]

Some drives can indeed make an audible racket when writing...some much more than others

7200 rpm drives like my HGST 4 TB NAS drive come to mind...I can hear it from across the room, but, and old WD 600 GB drive is nearly silent during the same test...

Certainly, if you want to hear some high activity write noise, do a GsmartControl Short Test (2 minutes)...

Check the drive in question for potential vibration inducing mounting (loose screws, etc), perhaps the noise will stop when touching the drive firmly with your finger, as often the chassis vibrates in resonance with the drive's writes..

 

[Ketchup79]

How is it monted? It could have just gotten a little loose. My experience mimics mdd1963's experiences - some are totally silent, some I can hear whenever they are being accessed. Don't go by just a SMART test though. Use Hitachi's drive test software. If they don't have any (although I am sure they do) Seatools will do the same thing.

 

[Badankydank]

Some drives can indeed make an audible racket when writing...some much more than others

7200 rpm drives like my HGST 4 TB NAS drive come to mind...I can hear it from across the room, but, and old WD 600 GB drive is nearly silent during the same test...

Certainly, if you want to hear some high activity write noise, do a GsmartControl Short Test (2 minutes)...

Check the drive in question for potential vibration inducing mounting (loose screws, etc), perhaps the noise will stop when touching the drive firmly with your finger, as often the chassis vibrates in resonance with the drive's writes..

My HDD is mounted with clips in a HDD tray. I had recently reorganized my cables but they ended up really close to my HDD, I have since moved them. The clips holding the HDD were also loose so I tightened them and there has been no noise so far

 

[Badankydank]

How is it monted? It could have just gotten a little loose. My experience mimics mdd1963's experiences - some are totally silent, some I can hear whenever they are being accessed. Don't go by just a SMART test though. Use Hitachi's drive test software. If they don't have any (although I am sure they do) Seatools will do the same thing.

My HDD is mounted with clips in a HDD tray. I had recently reorganized my cables but they ended up really close to my HDD, I have since moved them. The clips holding the HDD were also loose so I tightened them and there has been no noise so far

 

[Badankydank]

A noisy hard drive is never a good sign.

Very good that you backed up your data but do ensure that you can truly recover the files and that the files are readable.

The backup process may have appeared to work but not wait to find out....

In the meantime get another drive set up as a replacement.

You might try cloning the HDD to a SSD as a starting point. Once the clone is made, swap out the HDD and install the SSD.

Hopefully the SSD will work. Then verify that all data on the SSD and previously backed up is indeed intact.

Then RMA the HDD.

However, remember that anything you do may cause further HDD damage and loss of data.

I already have an SSD that I use in conjunction with the HDD, but it quite full, is it worth just moving my most important files to the SSD?

 

[Ralston18]

Worth moving - yes.

But do make the distinction between moving and copying.

Copy first and verify that the copies (you should have multiple backups in different places) are all recoverable and readable. The original file remains in the source location,.

A move is just that, a move.

So if something goes wrong during the move there is no original file left behind in the source location and the file moved to the target location may end up garbled or corrupted.

Copy and verify the copies first.

Then go back and do a move (or even a deletion) of the original files to recover drive space.

 

[Badankydank]

Worth moving - yes.

But do make the distinction between moving and copying.

Copy first and verify that the copies (you should have multiple backups in different places) are all recoverable and readable. The original file remains in the source location,.

A move is just that, a move.

So if something goes wrong during the move there is no original file left behind in the source location and the file moved to the target location may end up garbled or corrupted.

Copy and verify the copies first.

Then go back and do a move (or even a deletion) of the original files to recover drive space.

cheers