Time To Send In HDD For Replacement?

[UseItNow]

Hello to everyone,

I have had my share of hard drives in the past but have never encountered a failing drive. I currently have a Western Digital drive that seems to be making clicking sounds now and then but because I've never had a drive go bad on me, I'm not sure if it's the drive or my head playing with me? The drive has about 4 months warranty left on it.

The drives diagnostics say it is fine but obviously this is not exhaustive, is it?

So the question is do I send it to WD for replacement just to be on the safe side?

Now if I did send this to WD, would they replace it with a new or refurbished drive? I am sure the remaining warranty of 4 months would be that on the replacement.

Also would it be a like for like drive in terms of specification?

What if they find no fault with the drive, will I have it sent back or will I have to pay costs to have it sent back?

Finally, in terms of reliability, those of you who have had replacements issued, how have they fared in regards to 'longevity'?

Oh yeah, a thanks to everyone for reading.

[007]

I guess, if you never encountered hdd's failure you cannot be sure if that's 'the' click.At least I would not know that.
In general, any 'clicking' noise coming from hdd is a bad sign.Try to check your disk running 'CHKDSK C: /F /R' (I do not know if it works with Vista,certainly with XP), make a good backup and call WD for further advise.

I guess any company will charge for delivery (sometimes also some service surcharge) if the tested item is found not faulty.

I never had hdd replaced so I cannot say anything about the 'longevity' .

[Tonka777]

Hard Drive clicking is not necessarily bad. Is it the drive which has your OS on? If it isn't (ie its just a storage drive) it could be that your OS is switching it off every now and then to save power. I had similar concerns with a Hard drive i bought recently, it would click every now and then for no apparent reason and then the good folks at Scan suggested suggested checking my power options.

Might be worth checking your power options before sending it back.

btw, I think the whole point of the 'my system' dialogue on the left (under your user name) is to list your system specs so that people can assist you more easily, not fill with smart ass answers! ;-)

[xPETEZx]

As others have said, clicking is not always bad, but it generally does spell trouble.

So I would back up any data, and give WD a call. See what they say about the sound, and if they will RMA it for you.

[GoNz0]

tonka clicking drives is bad, its the head striking the of the mounting frame and the drive should only be used once more, to backup the data before it gets sent for RMA

UseItNow, you can apply for a WD advanced RMA, this is from there site

We ship the replacement product to you first before receiving your defective product. You have 30 days to send us your defective product. A credit card is required to insure that WD receives the returned product within 30 days from the date on which the replacement product is shipped. Please see below for more details about the service:

you log it as excessive noise, give em card details and wait for the new drive, once you get it, clone the info to the refurb they send, wipe your old one and send it back.

there are various freeware tools to wipe the info and make sure the average user cant get it back using recovery software.

http://websupport.wdc.com/warranty/r...pe=end&lang=en

[UseItNow]

Hard Drive clicking is not necessarily bad. Is it the drive which has your OS on? If it isn't (ie its just a storage drive) it could be that your OS is switching it off every now and then to save power. I had similar concerns with a Hard drive i bought recently, it would click every now and then for no apparent reason and then the good folks at Scan suggested suggested checking my power options.

Might be worth checking your power options before sending it back...

It is an OS drive, the power options were the first thing I set up after the XP install, it's not that.
You see my siblings machine has a Hitachi 160Gb and that has been thrashing away from day one... 2 years ago, so you see why I'm confused.

....btw, I think the whole point of the 'my system' dialogue on the left (under your user name) is to list your system specs so that people can assist you more easily, not fill with smart ass answers! ;-)

It's an old, on it's last leg AMD Athlon 2000+ XP system with a SATA addon. (Note: Prebuilt machine)

tonka clicking drives is bad, its the head striking the of the mounting frame and the drive should only be used once more, to backup the data before it gets sent for RMA

UseItNow, you can apply for a WD advanced RMA, this is from there site

you log it as excessive noise, give em card details and wait for the new drive, once you get it, clone the info to the refurb they send, wipe your old one and send it back.

there are various freeware tools to wipe the info and make sure the average user cant get it back using recovery software.

http://websupport.wdc.com/warranty/r...pe=end&lang=en

Yeah mate, saw that on their site, will have to email them to confirm, have already taken drive out and now using an old IDE one temporarily, this machine is now going within the next 2 weeks.

[Tonka777]

tonka clicking drives is bad, its the head striking the of the mounting frame and the drive should only be used once more, to backup the data before it gets sent for RMA

That's what i thought until i contacted Scan about my new F1 doing it. Both of my F1's make a click when i power down the PC, the new one i got was doing it while the PC was on due to power saving options. Now i don't know whether to think they are ok or not! Might have to make another thread, instead of hi-jacking this one!

Power options wont turn off an OS drive, as its always in use. So it cant be that in your case UseitNow.

[GoNz0]

when you power down i wouldn't worry about it, if its in use then i would worry.

[watercooled]

Constant clicking normally indicates the head attempting to get a servo lock. You wouldn't be able to access the disk during the clicking if this was the case and this normally happens on start up. You could try CHKDSK (BTW the /R flag implies /F so you don't need both) but if it's a mechanical failure that would only add additional wear to the drive and possibly cause it to fail. Back up what you can if it's concerning you and RMA it.
@Tonka: The clicking you can hear is normal - it happens on all of my F1 drives on power down and on idle drives spinning down due to power saving options - it's nothing to worry about, it's just the head parking.

[GoNz0]

i don't know why people get the idea to run a chkdsk and hammer a drive thats going to stop working at any given moment if its got the click of death !

common sence says you clone the drive and chkdsk the new drive to fix the corruption

[watercooled]

Yeah, if you suspect a fault backing up should be the first thing you do - chkdsk could finish the drive off!

[UseItNow]

First thing I did was backup.

Anyway, awaiting response from WD.

[GoNz0]

just do the online RMA under excessive noise

[Pob255]

Although that's a good point UseItNow makes about refurb unit replacements.
Do they refurb or not?

Given the difficulity in opening up a hard drive to replace any physically failed parts it my be cheaper for them just to ship new drives.



And in support of Tonka777, he did make a good point about the power settings.

seems to be making clicking sounds now and then

He didn't say constant or repeated clicking sounds.
So Tonka was right in querying power saving settings, although with the extra info UseItNow has given us now it doesn't sound like that and does sound like so other mechanical issue.

[UseItNow]

Although that's a good point UseItNow makes about refurb unit replacements.
Do they refurb or not?

Given the difficulity in opening up a hard drive to replace any physically failed parts it my be cheaper for them just to ship new drives.

You see I asked as I recollect reading on the WD site about replacements being 'recertified' products, so assumed they are refurbished units? I may just be wrong altogether!

[EarlGrey]

Back it up and replace it.

No other option in my opinion.