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General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: Dust on July 10, 2009, 09:37:42 am

Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Dust on July 10, 2009, 09:37:42 am: My hard drive (1.5 TB) clicks 11 times when powered up and then stops spinning. My bios detects it but it never shows up as a drive in Windows.
I tried using a SATA to USB converter and nothing shows up either (the converter works, I tested it with another drive).

Is it dead?

I looked up some sound clips of failing hard drives and this didn't sound like any of them.
This sort sounds like an old walkman changing songs and loading (sort of like a spinning noise) then a *CLICK* repeated 11 times.

It is still under warranty, but I want to be sure I can't recover anything before I send it in.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Ghost_Aspergers on July 10, 2009, 05:16:23 pm: It sure does sound dead.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Kayos on July 10, 2009, 08:12:27 pm: I'm pretty sure it's dead.

You seem to have a lot of computer troubles, eh dust?
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Dust on July 10, 2009, 08:33:34 pm: Quote from: Kayos on July 10, 2009, 08:12:27 pm
You seem to have a lot of computer troubles, eh dust?
Yes, yes I do.

Anyways I sent it back in to get a replacement and ordered a Western Digital 1.5 TB drive because I don't trust the one Seagate is going to send me.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Mama Luigi on July 10, 2009, 09:10:04 pm: Quote from: Dust on July 10, 2009, 08:33:34 pm
Yes, yes I do.

Anyways I sent it back in to get a replacement and ordered a Western Digital 1.5 TB drive because I don't trust the one Seagate is going to send me.
Hah apparently some of the high capacity Seagate drives have a terrible reputation for failing. Like... we're talking a staggering number of drives here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148299

This is nothing. There was one here on Newegg that had many more reviews than this and 2/5 reviewers had a drive that failed within a month.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Ragnar on July 10, 2009, 09:24:49 pm: ahaha I have like a 35 GB hard drive

well ok I have one portable one that's 80 GB but man how do you even come close to filling 1.5 TB

is there at least some performance benefit to that much space like you could defragment God
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Dust on July 10, 2009, 09:54:35 pm: Quote from: Mama Luigi on July 10, 2009, 09:10:04 pm
Hah apparently some of the high capacity Seagate drives have a terrible reputation for failing. Like... we're talking a staggering number of drives here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148299

This is nothing. There was one here on Newegg that had many more reviews than this and 2/5 reviewers had a drive that failed within a month.
Yeah, I've never really known Seagate to be too trustworthy, but I figured such a large company would at least have DECENT hardware.

The one I bought:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337

did not have nearly as many bad reviews.

I at least hope the Western Digital hard drive is stable. From what I can remember, Western Digital is fairly trustworthy.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Kayos on July 11, 2009, 01:15:34 am: Wow. I probably won't be buying any Seagate drives any time soon.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: something bizarre and impractical on July 11, 2009, 02:06:03 am: I've always bought Western Digital drives. I'm not sure if there is significant difference between them, but I've never had any problems.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Vanit on July 11, 2009, 04:40:55 am: Should've tried putting the drive in the freezer, gets you about 2-3 minutes of backup time!
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Kayos on July 11, 2009, 08:28:18 am: Quote from: Vanit on July 11, 2009, 04:40:55 am
Should've tried putting the drive in the freezer, gets you about 2-3 minutes of backup time!
Is that 2-3 minutes total or 2-3 minutes after the booting of the operating system?
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: the bloddy ghost on July 11, 2009, 10:17:26 am: Try hitting it and seeing if it gives it a kickstart. That's what we did when our old packard bell hard drive was going out. :P
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Dust on July 11, 2009, 02:54:54 pm: Quote from: Tomato on July 11, 2009, 10:17:26 am
Try hitting it and seeing if it gives it a kickstart. That's what we did when our old packard bell hard drive was going out. :P

Quote from: Vanit on July 11, 2009, 04:40:55 am
Should've tried putting the drive in the freezer, gets you about 2-3 minutes of backup time!

I would gladly try some of these things if it wasn't still under warranty. If I did one of these things it might void the warranty or something, and I don't want to risk this. There isn't really anything important on it. It's more of the fact that I want the drive as a WHOLE, not specific files.

If anything I would like to CLEAR the drive before I sent it in without physically damaging it.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Mama Luigi on July 12, 2009, 10:09:12 pm: Yeah don't do those things. Hitting a drive is far more likely to further damage than to fix anything (in rare cases it is not unheard of though). Haven't heard the freezer trick but I don't think I understand the logic behind it... these drives fail because the mechanical head crashes usually... heat is rarely the cause of a drive failure.
Title: Hard drive clicks 11 times and stops spinning
Post by: Carrion Crow on July 12, 2009, 10:46:34 pm: I never thought I would see someone recommend a WD over a Seagate. Completely the opposite experience here for me and my dad and my friend who all had WDs die.

Best drive I own that is still in service is a Maxtor Diamondmax which has been running since 2003.

My dad also had a Sony laptop with a hitachi HDD inside and his friend had the same model of laptop and both of them suffered HDD failure so they have a bad rep imo also.