Floppy drive kind of noise

[filbert]

My pc has just started to make a noise that sounds like when you put a disc in a floppy drive, also the pc stops working for a few seconds when it does this.
It can do it at any time but I've noticed that it often does it when I click on a link in internet explorer.
I'm thinking I should save any data I need, incase it goes pop

Thanks

[peterb]

Do you have a floppy disk drive on the system?

[filbert]

Yes it does have a floppy drive, I've tested it and it seems to work,
I've not had the problem yet today, it was doing it every 20 minutes yesterday?

[peterb]

Check that windows isn't accessing it - the noise might be the floppy drive. (Usually if there is a window to the A drive open, but if you put a floppy disk in the drive and open it, then close the window, that might help - if it is the drive)

[filbert]

It's just done it for the first time today, I downloaded an adobe file to "my documents" and when I went to open it, I got the noise and the pc frooze for about 5 seconds, then the file opened and all is ok again.
I've opened the file and others several times but I'm not getting the fault.
I've put a floppy disc into the drive and I'll wait and see what happens.
Thanks for your help.

[filbert]

Update,
First I'll list the drives I've got,
1)320gb sata hdd
2)250gb sata hdd
3)dvd-rw sata
4)dvd-rom ide
I backed up "c" drive, this took ages and after, windows did a scan before starting and said it needed to load some files from memory, now windows takes a long time to start but works ok.
I still had the problem and after looking around I found 1 drive was in pio mode, I didn't know which drive it was but I found burning a dvd took longer than normal, so I thought it was the dvd-rw, so I uninstalled the drive and restarted windows.
When windows started it said it's found a new drive, and it was my 320gb hdd "c" drive, when I checked it was now in dma mode 5, so I thought that would be it.
The problem is still there and the drive is back in pio mode, it seems to be ok for a few hours then it starts to do the noise, so I'm thinking it starts when it gets hot, the pc is not getting to hot, the cpu and motherboard temps are ok.
I'm thinking it's the hdd going, I ran the seagate drive test and it passed, but only the short one, I'll run the long test later.

[filbert]

I downloaded the seagate seatools, and did the long test from a floppy disc, some of the info was:
Current temp 39 worst temp 49
Smart enabled but not been tripped
DST is supported logging feature set.
It took about 90 minutes to complete and it passed.
Since doing this I've not had the problem and windows loads quicker, also it's still in dma mode.
Could seatools have done something but not said? It just said passed after the test.

[peterb]

Possibly. As someone said (Sherlock Holmes?) "When you have ruled evything else, what is left must be the cause, however improbable"

[Steve B]

try changing the boot order so it boots from the HD first?

[GoNz0]

have you checked the event viewer for disk read errors ?

[filbert]

ok since I done the seatools check everything seems fine,
I always boot from hdd first, only changed to do the seatool test.
I have checked event veiwer and there are several red errors for atapi, it says device\ide\ideport1 or ide\ideport0, I don't know what drives they refer to.
I am thinking Mr Holmes was correct.

[SiM]

Do you tell your hard drive to spin down when not used (in the power saving settings)?
That could explain it

[GoNz0]

or the heads are smashing into the side of the drive as its about to crap out.

atapi errors dont happen when a disk is activated.

time to backup and seek a replacement.

[filbert]

SiM, checked in power saving settings and it says "turn off hard drive" "never" so I take it's not that.
GoNz0, now you got me worried 1 error says did not respond in the timeout period, the other says The driver detected a controller error, also it's for 2 drives(I think) ideport1 and ideport0, how do I find out what drives it refers to.
Also it's not done the noise since I ran seatools, so it must have done something
Thanks for the replies.

[GoNz0]

it will do it again no doubt, but the errors are related to the hard drive throwing an error.

[filbert]

it will do it again no doubt, but the errors are related to the hard drive throwing an error.

An update, I have now got a replacement hard drive from seagate, GoNzO your correct it did do it again, it lasted about 3 weeks.
This is the second seagate under a year old that has gone bad on me, used to think they were the best but I'll look for another make next time I need one.

Thanks.