New 1TB Seagate HDD squeaks

[Spudcake]

Hello

I was hoping someone could help me.

I bought a new PC a couple of weeks ago, which includes a Seagate 1TB HDD. The issue I'm having is that it squeaks from time to time. I think it could be the read heads parking, as the squeak that I hear when it's idling also appears every time I shut the PC down.

I haven't encountered any performance issues, and it's passed every HDD test I've thrown at it, though I haven't done any of those thorough scans that take multiple hours.

I've been looking at power management for it, assuming that the HDD is spinning down to save power. I've changed the settings in windows (I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit) but it still occurs.

So looking through the threads in this part of the forums, I discovered a utilty called HDD Scan. I noticed that it has Advanced Power Management (APM) features, so i tried it on my HDD. It shows that APM is active, with a timer set at 128.

Is that 128 seconds? That would make sense, as I hear the squeak roughly every 2 minutes when the PC is idling.

Could anyone recommend against turning the APM feature off? In all of my research, I've read alot of accounts of people disabling APM for various types of HDD, though I've not known of anyone using HDD Scan to do it.

The squeak itself doesn't bother me, but I've read that this APM feature can reduce the life of the HDD. This is also bringing back memories of a few years ago when the HDD on my laptop was failing and I barely managed to save my data, so I'm probably a bit paranoid.

I have a recording of the squeak, that I got by shutting my PC down. It's a .3ga file that I got with my phone. I could upload it if someone could recommend a safe and free file upload site.

Thanks.

 

[Swordsman90]

Try downloading CrystalDiskInfo: it's a great tool that gives you an at-a-glance summary of the health of your hard-drives. If I had it before September 5th, I wouldn't have lost my data on my SSD when it blew.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

 

[Spudcake]

Thanks for the reply.

I would like to use that, but I don't want the Open Candy Adware on my PC. I've tried the portable version but it just installs a gadget on my desktop.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Spudcake!

Unfortunately, the squeak is never a good sign. This indicates that there is physical damage on the drive.
Since it's a new one, I'd strongly recommend getting in touch with your HDD manufacturer's tech support ask them for help.
Your hard drive should still be within the warranty period, so you should be able to RMA it and get a replacement.
If you have any data on it, I'd suggest to back it up somewhere safe ASAP!

You can then also test the drive with your HDD manufacturer's diagnostics utility and check the health and S.M.A.R.T. status of the HDD.

Hope this helps you! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[fzabkar]

SeaTools tells you absolutely nothing about the SMART attributes, so in this case the manufacturer's tool is useless.

The APM setting of 128 is not a timer. Its meaning is defined in the ATA command standard. However, manufacturers are still at liberty to interpret the settings in a vendor specific way.

I would examine the Load/Unload Count attribute and Power On Hours attributes in HDDScan. If you upload the SMART data, I would be happy to analyse them for you.

If you wish to disable the drive's autoparking, then you might like to install quietHDD:

https://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/

 

[Spudcake]

Thanks for the replies.

So I went into full-on panic-research mode, and managed to find alot of accounts with the exact same, or similar, model of HDD that I have making this sound. I then found a video on Youtube which has the exact sound of mine. There are a number of sounds in that video. The one that is identical to the sound I hear is around 9 seconds in. I described it as a squeak, but many people are saying it's more of a chirp.

In almost everything I found, this noise was deemed normal, and is attributed to the APM system parking the heads of the HDD when idle for a short time. I also read of accounts where people mentioned that noise rarely occured during gameplay or watching video content, and other tasks like that. This is exactly the same behaviour that I've experienced.

I've disabled APM using HDD Scan, and it seems to have worked. I'll probably need to make a batch file that autostarts on bootup.

I clicked the SMART icon and got this.

 

[fzabkar]

QuietHDD is an application that sits in the SysTray and automatically disables APM at bootup and whenever the system wakes from sleep.

HDDScan's SMART report allows us to calculate the autoparking frequency (the raw values are in hexadecimal).

0xB8 Power On Hours / 0x52F Load/Unload Cycles = 8.3 minutes

http://www.google.com/search?q=0xB8+/+0x52F+hours+in+minutes

The other SMART data appear to be OK.

 

[Spudcake]

Thank you very much for the help fzabkar.

With APM disabled through HDD Scan, I only hear that parking sound when I shut the PC down. I haven't heard it once during normal operation.

I'll have a look at QuietHDD.

Thanks again everyone.