Hard disk about to fail?

[elite]

My hard disk (dedicated to recordings) has started to make a rather concerning loud clicking noise during recording and playback.

Does this indicate it might be about to give up on me?

[elite]

I do - reports "OK"

I was thinking of adding an extra drive - so maybe I'll bring this forward and see if I can sneak a second past the wife to be

[rowle1jt]

if the sounds have not been there since it was new... I would certainly start thinking about replacing the drive. And sooner rather than later....

[ShiningDragon]

My hard disk (dedicated to recordings) has started to make a rather concerning loud clicking noise during recording and playback.

Does this indicate it might be about to give up on me?

What Harddisk? Brand/Model?

You can download "Speedfan" and make an online S.M.A.R.T-Check, which is much more detailed then the "normal" S.M.A.R.T. notification from driver and BIOS.

But be warned: The "clicking" noise could be the first sign of death for your HDD.

[elite]

Yeah - I was just trying to convince myself it wasn't an issue

[pBS]

could also be head slap from bad fragmentation..
first try a surface scan with chkdsk..
then maybe try a defrag, that also should smoke out any hd error before it becomes real nasty...
had any lightning storms lately? i find the hd's take about a week to go out after getting a serious jolt....
hope that helps..

[Cyb]

Hopefully it's not an IBM Deskstar drive and you're not experiencing the infamous "click of death".

More info here, which includes a link to some wav's of the sound they make.

[elite]

What Harddisk? Brand/Model?

You can download "Speedfan" and make an online S.M.A.R.T-Check, which is much more detailed then the "normal" S.M.A.R.T. notification from driver and BIOS.

But be warned: The "clicking" noise could be the first sign of death for your HDD.

It's a cheap Maxtor (can't remember the model - at work now)

I ran an online SMART check (not speedfan but similar) - everything reports ok

Thanks for all the input guys - all very helpful as ever, am going to pick up a couple of new drives on my way home

Any suggestions on make? - quiet is preferable but not essential

[JimF]

Any suggestions on make? - quiet is preferable but not essential

The only ones to get now are the new Seagates with perpendicular magnetic recording. I have the 320 GB, and it is quiet, cool and fast. They have both serial and parallel port models.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822148140
They also have 80 GB, 500 GB and 750 GB sizes that I have seen thus far.

But if you need to keep a drive going a while longer in order to save the information as it is dying, or sometimes restore it even after it will no longer boot, then SpinRite 6.0 is the way to go.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

[HtV]

Any suggestions on make? - quiet is preferable but not essential

Samsungs are/were very quiet.I have a 200 gig samsung and a few maxtors. The samsung is really more quiet. Good luck.