I have some crappy old Seagate Medalist 8.4GB disk which I'm using in my old-skool PC, but it seems to make these weird noises every now and then. It only seems to happen after the first few minutes of turning it on - sometimes it'll make this kinda resonating sound (possibly even like a grinding sound?) that would last about a second. There's no regular pattern about this, it seems. I thought at first it was just some resonating with the rest of the case, but I tried it in my other PC (with it just lying on top of a DVD drive) and the same thing happens. Is this a sign of it dying? I did the diagnostic test thing on Seagate's website and everything seemed good. I've never had any noticeable data errors. But could the bearings or motor or something be on the way out?
Grr, the only other spare I have is only 4.3 gigs, and it's even older, and one of the IDE pins was broken off when I got it so now it's just held in place by hope...
the 60gig hdd in my 2nd pc did also do some noises last week and did crash the whole pc more then one time so i bought a new 200gig and copied everything to it and now even the first hdd runs like charm =) my advise get a new hdd or burn two dvds cause over long this thing will crash
Ultimate Boot CD You could use my favorite portable diagnostic suite to test out the drive, but it'll probably just affirm your suspicions. Go to: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Just download and burn the ISO, it's a pre-done bootable suite of apps for diagnosing just about any hardware problem. Here's the first screen you see: From here you'll hit F2 to enter the HDD Tools menu. SPACE will take you to the next page and ESC will take you to the previous page. On the second page there will be the Hitachi/IBM Drive Fitness Test which is an excellent HDD tester no matter what brand you own, also on that same page (or maybe the next) will be Seagates OWN HDD tester. Have fun! ~Krelian
Just one more thing, if it does die, try my magical method - It worked last week when my hard disk made cranky noises and refuses to appear in bios. So heres the_steadsters Fantasmagorical step by step guide to hard disk repair: 1) Open PC Case 2) Locate Hard Disk 3) Take non metallic end of a screwdriver 4) Lightly Bash Hard Disk 2-3 Times 5) Replace PC Case 6) Push power button Computer 7) Pray. Note: I take no responsibility for damage caused using this method. The fact that you are bashing your hard disk with a screwdriver should alert you that this is an incredibly dodgy way to repair a component....
I think I've heard of that Ultimate Boot CD thing before - sounds like good stuff! I would try it out, but unfortunately the PC this HDD is in predates booting from CDs. Which reminds me how much of a pain in the arse trying to install Win95C from a CD was... I could always put it in the other PC... I suppose... but that requires work. I'll keep it in mind though. And I'll try your method as a last resort when it does go pear-shaped, steadster. If whacking old TVs fixes them, bashing old HDDs could work too!
Actually it could be a bearing going out of whack for a while until it all starts to spin smoothly, so hitting it just might help it but I doubt it will make it worse. Try to back up your IMPORTANT data, chances are that it is not everything you have on the HDD that is that important. Before you toss the HDD, do a low-level format of the HDD because its soo old. My friends HDD started to make wierd noises, so he did a low level format and then it stopped making those rattling sounds when accessing data.
There's *nothing* important on it - just Win95 and NT4, and a load of old games! I might try tapping it, but aarrghhh it's under a VCR and a load of other crap!
