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Clunking noise coming from MBP HDD

J

jsnuff1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 4, 2003
730
340
NY
Hi I have a 2.4ghz 15" macbook pro I got in July. Recently the hard drive has been making an unusual noise. Every 10-15 seconds it makes a noise that sounds like a CLUNK. Disk utility, SMART sensor and all the
like report a healthy drive. Should I be concerned? Thanks!
 
Hmm... hard to tell without hearing it ourselves. One thing is sure... you don't want to risk it. Have an Apple Store check it out.
 
BACK UP DATA ASAP!!!

Harddrive noise means it's about to fail.

And make appointment with apple store genius bar to have that HD replaced.
 
Dying HDD =[ back everything up to an external drive (Time Machine) and get Apple to have a looksie...
 
Like the previous BACK up your data!!! then start looking into a new hard drive, when yours fails get a new one from apple, then buy a HUGE one WD 320GB scorpio, buy a external case then you have a hugge drive in your lappy and a good external.

Cheers
 
Like others said BACK UP! My macbook made the same clunking and grinding noise and the HD died on me. There is a chance nothing maybe wrong, I have an old personally built PC and it has been making the same noise for several years now and its been going pretty strong. Still, back up when u get the chance.
 
what is pissing me off is that when i try to record the sound with garageband, the sound stops. When I stop recording it comes back. So i guess because garageband is writing to the HD while its recording its causing it to stop.

Thanks for the advice I have bootcamp running on an external drive so im good there. If the drives does fail I know I wont be replacing it with the same one apple will want. I want to go with a 7200 drive. What are my options of getting this done through apple? Or am I out of luck and will have to just buy the drive and do it myself? I dont have a problem with changing it myself but if there a way to get apple to pay some of the costs and have them do it would be better.
 
ok i made garageband record the song to my external drive so was able to make the drive make the noise during recording. You can listen to it below. Sorry for all the background noise, had to turn the mic gain up all the way to record it good.

sound file
 
jsnuff1 said:
ok i made garageband record the song to my external drive so was able to make the drive make the noise during recording. You can listen to it below. Sorry for all the background noise, had to turn the mic gain up all the way to record it good.

sound file
Click to expand...

thats normal, its the harddrive parking the heads so they dont get damaged from a sudden drop
 
jsnuff1 said:
so why is it doing it every 15 seconds?
Click to expand...

Taken from http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/physClunking-c.html

"Also, some newer drives (such as those made by Western Digital) use a feature called "wear leveling", that causes the disk to move from track to track every 15 seconds or so to prevent the heads from sitting over one area of the disk for an excessive period of time (which could increase the possibility of a wearout failure). Time the interval between clicks; if it is 15 seconds exactly and the drive is otherwise fine, this is likely what is going on, and you probably do not have to do anything."

Mine has the exact same sound too...
 
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