How do you know your hard drive is dying?

[Color me Dan]

I am always scared of noises from computers, noise usually means something is wrong. If that noise comes anywhere near a hard drive I immediately start to worry. Thing is, I've never actually had a hard drive die on me so I wouldn't know WHAT sound to look for. So my hard drive is making a rather silent high pitched sound and sometimes sounds like air is escaping from a bottle not screwed down hard enough. My hard drives have SMART, but it hasn't given me a holler either.

Is there anything I should be looking for or something I can do to find more information?

edit: running TuneUp disk doctor right now to see if it will find anything.

 

[Blazkowicz]

most often a hard drive dies without prior warning, and you don't know why. only sure thing is it does one day.

 

[vazel]

Clicking noises are usually an indicator of a drive that is going to die. Although it can just die out of nowhere. When it does die you can try to reclaim your data by doing the freezer trick(Google it).

 

[Tahir2]

Who manufactured your drive? Seagate/Maxtor/WD etc?

Run their diagnostic utility or try Hitachi DFT (Drive Fitness Test).

 

[Richard]

I am always scared of noises from computers, noise usually means something is wrong. If that noise comes anywhere near a hard drive I immediately start to worry. Thing is, I've never actually had a hard drive die on me so I wouldn't know WHAT sound to look for. So my hard drive is making a rather silent high pitched sound and sometimes sounds like air is escaping from a bottle not screwed down hard enough. My hard drives have SMART, but it hasn't given me a holler either.

Is there anything I should be looking for or something I can do to find more information?

edit: running TuneUp disk doctor right now to see if it will find anything.

There was a google study recently published with some startling data: most of the drives that failed never hit a SMART threshold. So instead of trying to find out if your drive is failing, listen to Blazkowicz: the only thing that's sure is that they all fail one day. If you're using a desktop you can find a large internal HD for peanuts that you can put to use along side your current disk. Copy the data over. Remember, data you haven't backed up is data you don't need.

So far only one drive has ever failed me during use. It was after a week where I kept taking it out, changing the master/slave config, etc. because I was helping a friend backup his data and reinstall Windoze. The drive started clicking while booting, first just a couple of clicks until later in the day it just kept clicking and the 'puter couldn't mount it any longer. Thankfully this was a backup 1gb small drive I had just to move stuff around; this was about 10 years ago where backing up to CDs took way too long.

 

[Bludd]

I've been saved by SMART on a few occasions. It notified me of a problem, I backed up and the drive failed shortly thereafter.

 

[Jawed]

I had a 75GB Deathstar fail, when them failing was all the rage. The 60GB Deskstar that I replaced it with has just failed (Monday) and a 250GB drive failed just over a year ago.

The two IBMs failed unexpectedly. The 250GB drive spent well over 2 years warning me, in SMART, that it was going to fail imminently.

In other words, just assume each disk will fail. I still find if miraculous that they work at the microscopic tolerances and fantastic speeds they do.

Jawed

 

[Color me Dan]

TuneUp didn't find anything wrong with it and I'm beginning to suspect that It's just that drives normal noise profile. I have two Samsung hard drives and both sound differently in normal use. They're not more then a year old and not heavily used.

It's kind of sad that hard drives can die so easily though. Whether it's just public perception or true I think hard drives ought to live longer then they do right now. Whatever the case of hard drive prices and their abundance, you should be able to trust your hard drive to stay alive for a few years, an investment is an investment however you look at it. Especially since most people don't expect to need to back up all of their stuff all the time. And really, they shouldn't. But that's another debate then the topic at hand really.

I read good reviews on the Samsung drives before I bought them though, and you can always end up with a faulty drive no mater how good or expensive, but is Samsung generally considered good?

 

[Bludd]

The Samsung F1 drives are considered to be good.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

The worst thing you can do at this point is run a disk utility. Keep disk access to a minimum, migrate your data to another location, and be prepared to swap the drive out when it does fail catastrophically (and it will, based on the description you gave).

 

[Color me Dan]

be prepared to swap the drive out when it does fail catastrophically (and it will, based on the description you gave).

...crap. It's my windows hd too... *sigh* luckily nothing important is on it.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

I've been a tech for so long I know a failing HD immediately when I hear its symptoms.

 

[Color me Dan]

Since there is nothing important on that drive I'll keep using I until it breaks. I'll update you when it dies.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Well at least there's a silver lining to this cloud. You may just want to save yourself the frustration that's sure to come when Windows finally craps out on you though. If you're lucky it'll just happen one day, if not then you'll have all kinds of wonderful new anomalies to report as apps fail to install/uninstall, updates fail to be applied, settings fail to be saved, etc, etc.

 

[Color me Dan]

That's wonderful, my current economic situation doesn't allow me to buy a new drive outright (read, bought myself broke with new computer + unforeseen costs). I read on Samsungs home site that you can send them the drive under warranty and get a replacement as long as it's really dead which you check with their disk tool. Why on earth do they still make tools that you need disketts for though? think it'll work on a usb memory?

When it's dead I hope I can send it to them and get a new one... If I still have the box it came in... better check.

Update: It died sort of, my operating system is just rebooting after startup and looks like a mix between win2000 and xp once booted untill restart. No bluescreen, no nothing, just dies. Soooo i'm sending it back to Samsung so they can have a look at it and give me a new one.