scratching noise form hard disk?

[jhewer]

hi there

for a little while now i have been hearing a scratching noise, lasting about 2 seconds, coming from my pc when i shut down, which i can only think would be coming from the hard disk.

i have opened up my pc and checked all the cables and fans to make sure they're not making the noise.

i have been noticing this for a little time now, and have not had any other problems with my hard disk (no errors etc, no crashes) but i'm going back to uni now and cant afford for it to die on me once i'm there.

the hard disk is the western digital 120gb with 8mb buffer, and is only about 1 year and 3 months old. i do use the hard disk quite heavily for dvd backup and video editing and stuff.

can anyone tell me if the noise could be the hard disk, and if so, is it a sign that it might fail soon?

cheers
jon

[Hottentot]

Yes it could be the hard disk and yes it could be about to fail or at least become unreliable. Time to back-up your data at regular intervals just in case.

[jhewer]

yeh, i have an external hard disk and just got some free backup syncronisation software, so i'll just run that every nite before i shut down.

can anyone else let me know if they also think its the hard disk, if so i might need to buy a new one in the next few days to get my pc up and running before term starts, as i need my pc for my course.

wot r the best hard disks to get these days? i wouldn't need more that 120gig. i could go for a WD Raptor for Windows and software, and get a normal 40gig drive for music and dvd ripping i guess?

[Hottentot]

Most manufacturers have utilities you can download to check your hard disk.

I have an old IBM desk(death)star that has been making funny noises for over a year so immediate disk failure may not be about to happen.

My favourite drives at the moment are Samsung Spinpoint.

[ultimate]

See if it is your cd rom drives as they can make a sound when shutting down, like i.e. disk in drive.

[gamesaregood]

It does sound like it might be failing

Try here

Click Here to Download Tool

[ReDOcToBeR]

No matter what drive you have it's always better to back up ur data.

Most peeps I know have two drives connected & just tranfer or do a full back up
to the spare drive.

If not just save ur important stuff to a CDR (Just incase)

I've heard tons of noisy drives that still carry on for ages but always air on the side on caution.

Anyways it's a good habit to back up data on a regular basis.
If you don't then it's a lesson hard learned.

[jhewer]

ultimate - i hardly ever leave discs in my cdrom drives, but i'll check the noise more carefully next time i shut down, thanks

gamesaregood - thanks for the link i'll run the diagnostics software shortly and let you know what happens.

ReDOcToBeR - yeh i do backups quite regularly anyway, but more the reason to now i suppose....

[jhewer]

the western digital diagnostics software doesn't report any problems...........might email western digital and see if the noise is normal or not

[jhewer]

been in contact with Western Digital and they think its something starting to go wrong with the actuator or something, so i've submitted an rma request and should be getting the new drive through soon :-)

thanks for all ur help