Question HDD suddenly started making clicking noises, but it stopped after removing and reinstalling them in the case.

[stekelegel]

So this morning my pc just started to make clicking sounds. I didn't really know where the sounds came from but suspected my HDD. When turning of my pc though I realised it was the exact same noise which came from my pc the moment it shuts down completely, which I reckon would come from the PSU. Even after disconnecting the supposedly faulty HDD (a quite old Seagate one) the sound still appeared. But when I completely removed both my HDD's and reinstalled them in the system all clicking noises were completely gone, actually the HDD's barely make any sound at all anymore, unless stressed. The HDD definetely didn't make any weird noises like my old PS4 HDD did (which died). And honestly I don't really know whether it is fine now, or should probably best be replaced.

I also ran some SMART diagnostics tools. Most showed that all drives were completely fine, even Seagate's own diagnostics tool. But another SMART tool showed me the following: SMART Diagnostics. I don't really understand what it means but does it mean that the HDD is in bad shape anyway? The same tool actually also shows something in regards to my SSD, it shows this and I don't really know what that means either.

Does anybody know anything about this which could help me? and if it is adviced to replace it anyways, is there any HDD's of at least 2TB that you would recommend which aren't too expensive?

 

[Almighty_Denny]

I had a couple of drivers making those kind of noises and after LOTS of troubleshooting, at the end the fault was on the PSU, not the HDDs. After changing the PSU the noises never returned (except when turning off the system, as natural).

This happened me TWICE on different systems, and the culprit was always the PSU. It's in fact a pretty common issue.