hard drive clicking, motherboard problem?

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Des

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Hi,

My hard drive clicks continuously at a high frequency (maybe 7 or 8 times per second) from boot-up, and has done so pretty much since I built my PC (a couple of months ago). I had thought my hard drive was faulty and on the verge of failure, so I bought a new one and finally got around to installing it today. Unfortunately, it too makes the same clicking noise. Anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing this? I've opened the case - it's definitely the hard drive making the noise. I should also stress that this noise is over and above the usual noise resulting from hard disk activity.

If it helps, the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 nForce4. The SATA hard drive was recognised by the motherboard from the outset, but I had to set RAID striping on the single disk to get it to work (this is something others have done too).

Any help gratefully received!

Cheers,
Des
 
Hi Des - welcome to the site,

If you have changed the drive and it still makes that sound, the motherboard is the only other major common factor. I'd try using your drive in another PC to see if it still makes that sound.

I presume the drive still works fine though? You could try a new cable and try plugging it into a new channel on your motherboard.
 
if they were ordered online then they might have received a bashing while shipping...
 
Thanks, Guys, for your interest.

Ian - Yes, I'm wondering whether it's the motherboard. As you say, it's the only common factor. I've just tried connecting my drive to another SATA connector, but no luck. I guess I could try with both drives connected at the same time - why that should make any difference I don't know, but I've nothing to lose! I'll see if I can find another PC for the purposes of testing the drive; I could take it into my place of work, but SATA compatible motherboards are few and far between...

1nteger - the original hard drive which I thought was fault is a Seagate Barracuda (200 Gb). The replacement drive is a Maxstor (same capacity).

Alf - maybe both drives were damaged in transit, although I have to say that both were well packed. I'm hoping that I'm not so unlucky as to have two faulty drives...
 
It is possible that the clicking is your drives resonating/vibrating in your case.
Is the drive firmly screwed into place, or are you using quick release drive rails?
What case are you using?

I would recommend trying them in another PC also, then at least you casn determine if the issue is actually your drive(s) of a problem with your PC
 
Hi Cache-man,

I'm using an Antec Sonata with quick-release drive rails. The drive does appear to lodge quite firmly in place, but it's an intriguing possibility that it's some sort of vibration. I suppose I could easily test this by starting the PC with the case open and the drive temporarily placed somewhere else.

Thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Des
 
Des said:
Hi Cache-man,

I'm using an Antec Sonata with quick-release drive rails. The drive does appear to lodge quite firmly in place, but it's an intriguing possibility that it's some sort of vibration. I suppose I could easily test this by starting the PC with the case open and the drive temporarily placed somewhere else.

Thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Des
Click to expand...

It might be worth checking the manufacturers' websites to see if you can download any diagnostic tools. Western Digital provide them for their drives and they allow you to run complete physical tests - perhaps your supplier will have the same kind of thing.

Some drives do generate have pretty loud clicking noises when accessing - you're absolutely sure its not just that?

Another thing to consider I suppose is the possibility that a wire somewhere isn't just catching a fan - but you've probably eliminated all these already
 
It's definitely not a wire catching on a fan. As for hard drive diagnostic tools, I downloaded a utility from Seagate, burned it to CD, then discovered that it wouldn't work with NTFS-formatted drives! Maybe there are other ones around which will work...
 
...and it's not normal hard drive activity noise. The clicking is perfectly regular, from power-up to power-down. I've heard noisy hard drives before, and in such cases the intensity of the noise varies according to how much work it's doing.
 
I just bought a new hard drive today (Seagate Barracuda 80GB) and it makes a clicking noise too. But, this one only clicks for a few seconds after power up - always exactly the same number of clicks. I haven't yet managed to get my motherboard to recognise the existance of the new hard drive...
 
I've noticed that the SATA drives can be a HUGE pain to install. Check the motherboad--- did it come with a software cd. I just built my GF a rig like 2 days ago (not too shabby I might add) . Had to install the MOBOs raid controllers(off the bundled cd) just to get the drive recognised in BIOS. Since then all been fine.
 
Look for a floppy disk that came with motherboard, put it in the computer, and as soon as XP setup starts, keep tapping F6, then load the drivers from the floppy, and it should recognise the drive. Format in NTFS slow, then install windows.

My sister has the same drive.

Good luck :)
 
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