Help - Hard Drive Randomly Clicking and Disappearing from Windows Explorer

[HawkMan]

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If it were about to fail the clicking would be constant, i would also experience system freezing, data erros and a whole host of other things.

Actually no. A faulty hard drive can click at just random times or specific times or nearly constantly. In general it will get worse over time though, but not necessarily.

Also download seatools and run a few checks, starting with a plain SMART test.

[Robbie Ride]

All that does is try to recover data from damaged sectors and then marks them as bad. It can be helpful in file recovery but it won't save your drive. Back up everything and pull its life support plug, it's done. Even if it works for a while after running that utility, bad sectors have a tendency to spread. The drive should never be trusted again.

The drive doesnt have any bad sectors. I changed the SATA cable well over an hour ago and no issues.

[Rigby]

The drive doesnt have any bad sectors. I changed the SATA cable well over an hour ago and no issues.

All I can tell you is cables don't click.

[Robbie Ride]

All I can tell you is cables don't click.

its obvious cables dont click i never said they did, i think you misread what i wrote, but faulty SATA data or power cables can cause issues with HDD's. Even a faulty PSU with unstable voltages can cause issues with system hardware there for changing the PSU solves the issue, hence why i changed the cable in the first place.

On another note its nearly 12 hours since i changed the SATA data cable and removed the fan from the equation and guess what, no more clicking, i think doing this has solved the problem.

[TEX4S]

let me clarify something the clicking is NOT constant but random and usually stops even if data is being read or written to it. Let me also say that the last time i hear it click was on Monday and it started again about an hour ago.

If it were about to fail the clicking would be constant, i would also experience system freezing, data erros and a whole host of other things.

No it wouldnt, not every time, you're assuming to much. What you can assume is in order for their to be sounds, there has to be movement. Only a few things move inside a computer, fans, HDD, and optical drives. If it was clicking, and you replaced/moved a couple things, it is more likely that they were rubbing against a fan.

Before you go thinking "click is gone, no more problems" run HDTune's error check.

Oh, and there is no such thing as a 4-pin SATA molex, at least any more. Its one or the other. ;)

[Robbie Ride]

No it wouldnt, not every time, you're assuming to much. What you can assume is in order for their to be sounds, there has to be movement. Only a few things move inside a computer, fans, HDD, and optical drives. If it was clicking, and you replaced/moved a couple things, it is more likely that they were rubbing against a fan.

Before you go thinking "click is gone, no more problems" run HDTune's error check.

Oh, and there is no such thing as a 4-pin SATA molex, at least any more. Its one or the other. ;)

Erm no, there was nothing rubbing against a fan and the clicking was the drive (more on that in a minute), the clicking was louder than a hdd/optical drive read write cycle and deffinately not a fan clicking.

Oh and there is such a thing as 4-pin SATA molex, in case your unsure these are SATA cables with either one or two SATA power connectors with a 4-pin male molex connector that connects to a 4-pin female connector from the PSU.

So down to the drive itself, yes it did fail or on the verge or failing, today it was preventing my PC from booting, during post a message appeared stating that Slave 3 had failed.

So checking the Main Tab in the bios, next to Third IDE Slave, instead of showing my HDD model number it instead had "J9J9J9J9J9J9J9" and a random capacity amount, so i quickly transfered the data to another drive, removed the affected HDD and Completed an RMA. The HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB that i have had for 4 years, luckily its under warranty until August 28 2013.

But i have to say i'm a little worried about hooking it back up to mu computer to run SeaTools or HDD Regenerator 2011.

[n_K]

It was very stupid in the first place to have a HD connected on the same line as a fan.

Fans are motors, motors are variable in terms of power usage and the cheaper motors can cause very small shorts between + and -.

There are 4 pin molex -> sata power connectors yes but they're not that great because you need a decent molex connector on your PSU for it to stay in properly and the converter needs to be moulded decently. PLUS there's no 6V positive terminal on molex so the +6V cable is either disconnected, undervolted to 5V or overvolted to 7V by using +12 as positive and +5 as negative (can't remember which).

[Robbie Ride]

It was very stupid in the first place to have a HD connected on the same line as a fan.

Fans are motors, motors are variable in terms of power usage and the cheaper motors can cause very small shorts between + and -.

There are 4 pin molex -> sata power connectors yes but they're not that great because you need a decent molex connector on your PSU for it to stay in properly and the converter needs to be moulded decently. PLUS there's no 6V positive terminal on molex so the +6V cable is either disconnected, undervolted to 5V or overvolted to 7V by using +12 as positive and +5 as negative (can't remember which).

Having an HDD connected to the same line as the fan has never caused an issues before and this system was built in 2005 and upgraded with larger capacity drives from time to time, the fans are 12v and stay at a consistant speed regardless of system load.

Most motherboards come with spare SATA power cables that connect to the PSU via 4-pin molex and usually offer a tight connection.

in regards to there not being a +6v positive terminal, the red wire is +5v and the yellow is +12v with the two black wires being ground there is no +6v cable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector

[metallithrax]

I've had a drive that has clicked from when I first bought it (6 years ago) and it is still working fine.

[Robbie Ride]

I've had a drive that has clicked from when I first bought it (6 years ago) and it is still working fine.

so your hard drive has emitted loud intermittent clicks, most hard drives emit a slight click when reading and writing this is normal. As i said the bios had reported the drive as failed.

[linsook]

you backed up the data, now just rma the drive man. it's a ticking time bomb.

[Circaflex]

you backed up the data, now just rma the drive man. it's a ticking time bomb.

you know what i honestly hope he puts crucial data back on the drive and it fails within days. i hate when people ask for advice, are given legitimate answers and still play the "i know whats going on with it, your wrong im right, prove me wrong, etc" why on earth do these people even ask for help in the first place?

[+BudMan MVC]

And why have you not looked at the SMART INFO for this drive?? What does it say about the drive?

Plenty of free tools for smart info.. Have you checked out https://bitflock.com/

example

Within a couple of minutes you should have the info from smart if your drive is about to die, etc.

[Circaflex]

I do agree that SMART is a good quick test, but it isnt always fullproof. I have seen drives pass every diagnostic and fail smart, and ive seen it the other way fail diagnostics, clicking, and SMART says its healthy. But good idea budman

[HawkMan]

It's actually faily logically at a drive can pass all other tests no fail smart, smart is a test that starts at first use it can show signs of figur before other tests can actually see damage. Likewise a drive can be damaged physically to fast for smart to pick it up, but it will after a bit more time.

[Robbie Ride]

you know what i honestly hope he puts crucial data back on the drive and it fails within days. i hate when people ask for advice, are given legitimate answers and still play the "i know whats going on with it, your wrong im right, prove me wrong, etc" why on earth do these people even ask for help in the first place?

Your comment was neither helpful nor constructive, in this case its hard to distinguish who is right or wrong, yes the drive was emitting random clicks but in most situations it doesn't. Some answers are legitimate answers and some are not which is why they are corrected. I haven't set out to prove anyone wrong or myself right, i have stated the situation with the drive, i mearly point out that what people have said the opposite is what is really happening. Yes the drive could be failing but from what i have learned i get conflicting results from testing software i have used.

And why have you not looked at the SMART INFO for this drive?? What does it say about the drive?

Plenty of free tools for smart info.. Have you checked out https://bitflock.com/

example

Within a couple of minutes you should have the info from smart if your drive is about to die, etc.

Each free program i have used that performs the S.M.A.R.T test whether it be SeaTools, WD Diagnostics, etc they all come back as Passed. However using Hard Drive Sentinel shows that the hard drive has a health of 67% with a Estimated Remaining Lifetime of 349 days, all my other drives are fine.