Hard Drive Problem

[calric]

hopefully this is the right section; but hey, i have a question about a hard drive issue im having...

this is not on my mx17, btw.
I have a harddrive that just ticks about every 3 seconds (pretty consistant) during which its basically frozen (nothing reads it, it's basically crashed)

sounds kinda like a watch hands that can be heard accross the room, sortof:
TICK then i can cound 1 2 3 and TICK again.

sometimes (about 10% of the time) i can get it to stay on without ticking for about 20 mins before it resumes to its ticking.

I was wondering if anyone had any idea of what could cause this and if there was a way i could possibly fix it myself?

To replace it i would have to get another HD of at least equal size (my extra's are half of it right now) so just trying to save a bit of $ is all here. and parts -_X

 

[Maelstrom]

Sounds like your HD has had some inspiration and turned into a clock...

If that isn't the case, then maybe the HD ticks when it's angled? Maybe when you orientate your computer in some ways you causes the ticking. This, of course, would mean it's a hardware and not software problem (which it most likely is anyway) and your going to have to take a look to see what's wrong.

 

[Org]

I'd just replace (and copy files) before HD completely dies.

The "click of death" normally means the HD is about to fail (sooner or latter). It clicks when the little arm inside goes to the middle/resting area when not reading date if it's repetitive it's likely hardware (circuit board,head, or platter damage) which could be repaired but not really worth it or guaranteed to work.

Youtube has some videos showing how to repair a clicking harddives search them but like I said it's not guaranteed to work.

Watch and learn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMhdEp3SM_w

 

[yikes81]

Possible the read head is snagging while moving?

 

[AeonSoul]

Sounds like your HDD is about to fail, as Org said. Or might also be some bad sectors. Anyhow be sure to backup your important data before you try to do anything else, cause it could be the HDD read head going out of track or something like that, which means your HDD is going to be unusable soon. I've been there sadly