Question What do you make of the weird noise made by an HDD?

[Matthew Wai]

Linux is currently running from an internal SATA HDD with no weird noise.
On 2023-02-15, my PC failed to boot from the said HDD, which made the following weird noise:

https://voca.ro/11jWA5UAwPQR

What do you make of the noise?

 

[CountMike]

Linux is currently running from an internal SATA HDD with no weird noise.
On 2023-02-15, my PC failed to boot from the said HDD, which made the following weird noise:

https://voca.ro/11jWA5UAwPQR

What do you make of the noise?

Ticking noise means that HDD heads are hitting travel limits trying to find data to identify contents. That's usually called "Click of death"

 

[Paperdoc]

Agreed. When an HDD gets an error trying to read data and relay it back to the mobo, its response it to move the heads back to the edge starting position as a reliable reference point, then move the heads to the correct position to start reading again. If that gets an error AGAIN, it repeats, over and over. The sound you hear likely is that repeated movement of the heads to the stop point at the edge. Repetitive sounds mean constant read errors, indicating VERY likely imminent failure - or maybe already completely failed.

 

[Matthew Wai]

The sound you hear likely is that repeated movement of the heads to the stop point at the edge.

Would you describe the sound as "ticking" as CountMike did? I think it is "beeping" rather than "ticking".

maybe already completely failed

It is still working proper at this moment, but I will replace it in a few days.

 

[Paperdoc]

That depends a bit on the particular HDD unit. On many the sound is a short "buzz" as the head arm moves back to the stop point. On others that sound is weak, but you do hear a "tick" as the arm hits the stop. SOME HDD's actually include a tiny PZO "speaker" to emit their own alarm sound to alert you.

If your HDD still appears to work, you are lucky and now is a good time to replace. When you get the new unit, you can Clone your old drive onto the new one, thus preserving ALL your existing data.

 

[Matthew Wai]

That depends a bit on the particular HDD unit. On many the sound is a short "buzz" as the head arm moves back to the stop point.

On my particular HDD unit, do you hear a short "buzz"? Please hear it again: https://vocaroo.com/11jWA5UAwPQR
I do hear "buzzing" rather than "ticking" or "clicking".

preserving ALL your existing data

All of my personal data has already been backed up onto an external USB HDD. I will clean install Windows and Linux after replacing the internal SATA HDD.

 

[Paperdoc]

Yes, the "buzz" of a moving head arm is what I thought I heard on your recording.

A clean install is the thorough way, but take a bit more effort. When you do that, the Windows Registry is new and virtually empty, so it knows nothing about any software. Basically you have to re-Install each of your application software packages so they all can be used. THEN you can copy all your old user-generated data files to the new drive's folders.

 

[NerdyVixen]

Linux is currently running from an internal SATA HDD with no weird noise.
On 2023-02-15, my PC failed to boot from the said HDD, which made the following weird noise:

https://voca.ro/11jWA5UAwPQR

What do you make of the noise?

Connect the HDD to a working system and format the HDD, that will solve your problem.

 

[Paperdoc]

FORMATTING that HDD will completely wipe out ALL its information. Do NOT do that until AFTER you have cloned its info completely to another drive unit!

 

[Matthew Wai]

Connect the HDD to a working system and format the HDD, that will solve your problem.

The same problem could recur later, and I will have to format the HDD again and again. I believe the buzzing noise is indicative of the unreliability of the HDD.

 

[Paperdoc]

I agree, Now, there is a POSSIBLITY hat the problem is simply poor (dirty) contacts where cables plug into the HDD and, at their other end, into a mobo SATA port. For that possibility, the simple thing to try is to turn off everything and DISconnect the cable at each connection point, then plug back in again. Repeat several times. Then turn on power and see if that makes any difference.

I do NOT expect that to fix your problem, but it can't hurt to try. Usually when a HDD has repeated Read Errors causing repeated head seeking, it really is a failure within the HDD and you do need to replace it as soon as possible. So far you seem lucky that it still works sometimes so you can get data from it in a Cloning operation onto a new HDD.

 

[Matthew Wai]

it really is a failure within the HDD and you do need to replace it as soon as possible.

On 2023-01-28, I started this thread: www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=6407443
On 2023-02-17, I uploaded this sound file: https://vocaroo.com/11jWA5UAwPQR
On 2023-02-20, I replaced the HDD, from which my PC could still boot before the replacement.

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for the update. I hope your data transfer to the new drive went well. A habit of mine: AFTER making the changes and getting everything working on the new drive, SAVE the old drive for a while - OUT of your machine on a shelf. IF at some later date you discover something you had seems missing now, you can try to search the old drive for it.