Western Digital HDD click

[ahmz]

I just bought a new WD 1TB SATA internal HDD and it seems to be running fine except it makes a *click* noise every minute or so, it's very annoying and I'm wondering if I should be worried about it?

[Colin-uk Veteran]

sounds like its about to die, i'd send it back if you only just bought it.

[Miuku.]

You wouldn't happen to be doing mostly non-HD related work at the time? Perhaps it's parking the harddrive (as a powersaving feature).

Also Googling for "western digital click of death" gives quite a few hits - like Colin said, if I were you - I'd backup everything vamonos and get a new drive.

[Phantom Helix]

I have a 2TB drive external anyway that has recently been doing that, it's the drive I use for Time Machine, I noticed it before but then I took another identical 2tb drive external and RAID them together in a Stripe and I never heard the noise again.

However in the last few days I have removed the RAID and returned them to individual drives and it is again making that noise.

I have these two 2TB externals and a 1TB external all WD (the new shiny black ones) and this is the only one out of the 3 to do it.

It does not seem to do it during normal read/write access and never when the Indicator light on the front is blinking.

I called WD and Bestbuy where I bought it and both said as long as it is functioning I should back it up and bring it back, I haven't done it yet though I'm lazy.

since it is my time machine drive and i have 8-9 months left on my warranty i want to see if it will actually fail, i have not once ever, in 15 years had a drive fail and think i need to experience that lol

for you i would clone it to another drive or image and bring it back for an exchange

[ahmz]

I just played a video off it and it's not clicking while being accessed. But as soon as I stopped the video it made that click noise. I have all the power saving settings turned off so I don't think it's that.

I may end up returning it :s

[Phantom Helix]

You wouldn't happen to be doing mostly non-HD related work at the time? Perhaps it's parking the harddrive (as a powersaving feature).

Also Googling for "western digital click of death" gives quite a few hits - like Colin said, if I were you - I'd backup everything vamonos and get a new drive.

What Happend to google? i remember searching for phrases like that and i would get relevant recent info

seems like lately ive been generally OLD topics on fourms, when i did your "western digital click of death" search i got results from 2003 lol :(

[Miuku.]

What Happend to google? i remember searching for phrases like that and i would get relevant recent info

Let me teach you a little trick:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs...;oq=&aqi=g2

By adding &as_qdr=d30 to the end of your Google search string (URL) you can sort by date - 30 here of course means last 30 days. This has often helped me nail down the excess waste from my searches and find the really interesting things.

[ahmz]

I definitely just heard it spin up again. Bad sign.

[Phantom Helix]

spin up? or click like dying cylon? lol big difference

[ahmz]

Spin up then click once.. but it was only about 15 seconds after using it.

I ran the SMART diagnostics tool and it said everything was A-OK, but the constant timed clicking is doing my head in lol

[Ringer]

which of the drives do you have is it green, blue, or black?

if its the green then power saving was built into the drive and probably can't be turned off.

I would probably still return it and try a new one.

[Athlonite]

have you made sure the power settings in bios are also turned off

[cabron]

What had happened to Western Digital Quality? I had to returned just in this year 2 HDD because they die almost immediately I used for the first time.

[Phantom Helix]

What had happened to Western Digital Quality? I had to returned just in this year 2 HDD because they die almost immediately I used for the first time.

WD's Product "quality" has been....controversial for as long as i can remember. altho i chose to stick with because i learned along time ago to back things up so no matter what happens i don't get burned,

and their customer service is fantastic.

[ahmz]

Green.

I will check the bios settings soon.

All my HDDs are WD and I haven't had a problem til now, if it is a problem that is.

[ahmz]

I'm just gonna return it. Thanks guys.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Ahmz055

[ahmz]

So I returned it and got a new one, it's doing the same thing. I already tried changing power connectors and disconnecting other stuff and it doesn't make a difference.

I'm baffled.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

tried a different usb port? :unsure: maybe your usb parts arent getting enough power, are you plugging into the ports directly on the back of your pc (motherboard) ?

[Phantom Helix]

tried a different usb port? :unsure: maybe your usb parts arent getting enough power, are you plugging into the ports directly on the back of your pc (motherboard) ?

This is an internal drive system drive

[Colin-uk Veteran]

This is an internal drive system drive

yeah i just realise:pinch:h: ignore my post lol.

[jnelsoninjax]

Try running Western Digital Data Lifeguard (AKA WDDIAG) see what happens!

[notta]

WD's Product "quality" has been....controversial for as long as i can remember.

I personally go with the company that offers the best warranty. Last year I purchased 12 Seagate Hard Drives because of their 5 year warranty. Well, the beginning of this year they dropped all warranties to 3 years and WD bumped their warranties to 5 years. Yesterday I received my new 1TB WD drive :)

[Phantom Helix]

I do think WDDIAG is going to do much, i have a feeling the model he has is like that by nature and there are other HDD health monitoring/scanning programs out there that are equal or better but never really do much good.

Im not worried about Warranties for now, between all my tumb drives, internals, externals and portables im sitting on about 13-TB, im done buying more untill SSD's and larger and far more mainstream

[nonick]

Just return it, its gonna die

[Phantom Helix]

Just return it, its gonna die

He did and the new one is doing the same thing