Hard Drive is clicking, really a hd problem?

[Emansor]

My hard drive, a Western Digital 120 gig, it's only about 2 years old and has been in use for just around 1 year, just started clicking a couple days ago. At first it would just click, but then soon after it would be followed by my computer freezing. I used check disk and it found nothing to fix and after that I defragged it. Problems still persists.

It usually only clicks when something heavy loaded is happening on the computer, most usually when playing a game or doing two/three things at once. The specs are:

AMD 1.1 ghz
512 ram
Radeon 9500 (But it sometimes doesn't work, it got shorted out I think but somehow still works, so I have to switch to a geforce4 mx440)

Yesterday, the hard drive clicked and then just shut off the computer and would not turn back on for at least 30 minutes. Which brings me to my question. How can I be sure this is a hard drive problem? I find it hard to believe I already need to replace a HD after 2 years that has never been physically damaged.

As I stated above my Radeon 9500 acts funny every now and then, when I switched to my old geforce 4 the clicks happened a lot less frequent while gaming. I'm also starting to wonder if it could be my psu. The psu, apparently, is a Powerup 200w-330w and is at least 6-7 years old.

I have no idea, however, if a bad psu or video card can cause a HD to act like this.

A couple days ago the computer was on for five hours and it was fine, but as soon as I started up a game it only lasted 30 minutes before clicking and freezing. I hate the thought of having to replace everything already , it feels like I just did it.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Emansor My hard drive, a Western Digital 120 gig, it's only about 2 years old and has been in use for just around 1 year, just started clicking a couple days ago. At first it would just click, but then soon after it would be followed by my computer freezing. I used check disk and it found nothing to fix and after that I defragged it. Problems still persists.

Are you sure it's the hard drive clicking? Did you test it with the Western Digital diagnostic utilities from the Western Digital web site yet?

Originally Posted by Emansor Yesterday, the hard drive clicked and then just shut off the computer and would not turn back on for at least 30 minutes.

Again, are you sure it's the hard drive and not the power supply or the motherboard? Electrical arcing sounds like clicking.

Originally Posted by Emansor How can I be sure this is a hard drive problem?

Open the computer case up and listen to where the clicking is coming from. Test the hard drive with the manufacturer diagnostic utility. Install the hard drive in another computer and if it clicks there, the hard drive is on it's way out.

Originally Posted by Emansor I find it hard to believe I already need to replace a HD after 2 years that has never been physically damaged.

It happens. Sometimes it happens only a few months after it's installed, sometimes it can last a few years. A few years ago I installed about 10 Western Digital 80GB SE hard drives in a number of computers and 6 of them died after being in service between 1 1/2 to 2 years. I replaced them with Seagate hard drives that are still working fine. The other 4 Western Digital hard drives are still in service and working fine.

Originally Posted by Emansor I'm also starting to wonder if it could be my psu. The psu, apparently, is a Powerup 200w-330w and is at least 6-7 years old.

I would suspect the PowerUp PSU as being the cause of your computer problems...they're rubbish. I would replace it with something better. See this thread for more info.

Originally Posted by Emansor I have no idea, however, if a bad psu or video card can cause a HD to act like this. A couple days ago the computer was on for five hours and it was fine, but as soon as I started up a game it only lasted 30 minutes before clicking and freezing. I hate the thought of having to replace everything already , it feels like I just did it.

Again, I would replace the power supply before replacing anything else. PowerUp power supplies are rubbish. I would never install one in any of my computers.

Cricket

[kev7555]

I used to install Western Digital drives in most all of my customer systems. I dropped Western Digital and went to Seagate as a result of multiple failures over the past few years.

I had two of my own personal Western Digital drives fail last year alone.

I'd be willing to bet it's the drive.


-Kev

[Emansor]

Just an update:

I ran the WD diagnostic on the faulty hard drive (80g WD) and my new one (120g) and they passed the simple check. After I ran that, I unhooked the faulty drive and everything seemed fine, but there was a file I needed to have for work on that drive so I had to hook it up once more and transfer the file over to this drive(120g). I couldn't burn the files to a cd since the drive would not stay on long enough before it rebooted itself. After that I unhooked and removed the faulty drive from bios.

Now, this HD (120g) is acting up. It feels like the symptoms jumped drives, like a virus. At first the usual clicking and rebooting, then it changed to where windows would load, I would get to desktop and it would start loading programs like AVG free, quicktime, all that stuff, but about a minute into startup the computer would just reboot. No clicking, no warning, just reboot. I got the suspicion it was a file/program causing this, so I started up in safe mode and everything was fine. I ran checkdisc, AVG anti virus and spybot/adaware. Everything came out fine and there was no reboot in the five hours I was doing stuff. Once I booted up in normal mode, the computer would still act up.

So as a last resort I used system restore (Just now), but only one checkpoint was available so I used it. Now everything seems fine. I've lasted long enough to type this post, I hope everything is fine now.

One last thing, I hooked up my old 20gig hard drive just to see what would happen. The clicking and rebooting still happened but after awhile the computer clicked, rebooted and when windows loaded up I got a little window from the task tray saying that everything on my G: drive was lost (the old 20gig). I looked in My Computer and the G: drive wasn't there, I rebooted and looked in Bios and it was not recognized there either. What caused that? I haven't used that drive in years. Is the drive completly useless now? How likely is that to happen to my other two hard drives?

These past six days none of my hard drives have been stable. I ran out of ideas with the system restore, I hope everything holds. I've been noticing though that whenever I hooked up the faulty drive, my better working hard drives would act up for a couple days, even when the faulty drive is no longer hooked up. I'm never hooking it up again.

[minsonngo]

Like Cricket said earlier... you should consider replacing that PSU with a quality one.


In my experience... faulty or dying PSUs can cause your computer to exhibit some really odd symptoms.

[Emansor]

Well it's rebooting again now, every hour and a half or so. Clicks, then reboots. I guess I'll have to replace my psu and HD. Hell, I need a new computer period...


edit-

Hard drive is now making a chirping noise.

[minsonngo]

Try the PSU replacement first.

The HDDs you tested in the same system could have been acting odd due to the faulty PSU.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Emansor Hard drive is now making a chirping noise.

I hope you made backups of all your important data. And I hope you're going to buy a new hard drive soon as it does sound like yours is going to die soon. Odd noises from a hard drive is never a good thing.

Cricket