HDD Clicking

[hoemee]

I am working on a friends computer and am having a weird problem - it came to me with the hard drive clicking - unusable - so ordered a replacement hard drive(seagate) and the new one out of the box would do the same thing. So, I RMA it back and got a Western digital...it is doing the same thing! Here is the weird thing though, if I lay the case down on it's side it works fine! I have jiggled the power supply cord while it is running and it doesn't stop...do you think it is a power supply problem or maybe the mobo?

It is a Dell XPS 200, windows media center edition

Any ideas?

[shadowpr]

Have you tried a different cable?

Different port on the mother board?

Different power connector?

[hoemee]

There is only one sata port on the mobo...but I think it may have to do with the sata cable - or where it connects into the mobo - once the reinstall finishes i will look at that - thanks for the info

[hoemee]

Well I found out what it was - the power supply...I feel pretty stupid now that I rma'd the last hard drive....when the tower is laid on it side with the cover off, the fan is not turning in the PSU (visible from inside the case) - when turned upright, it tries to turn and staggers and then begins making noise.....time to find a psu......hope this helps someone else -

[bailey]

I got cought by that one too a few months ago, seams the voltage from the power supply was causeing the hard drive to go to the park position and back repeatably and that is what made the clicking noise, I too replaced the power supply and cured the problem.

bob
WB7DMX