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andyjslin

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 12, 2009
57
0
Canberra, Australia
Evening guys,

I have Mroogled the condition of hard-drive chirping (maybe clicking, doesn't sound like hard-drive clicking 'click' though) as a symptom of the hard-drive going to die. The condition happens every so often, in particular during Firefox (Flash and Java) and Outlook usage. I have backed up, via time machine, and contacted apple via their express appointment.

I have analaysed the SMART condition via SMART Utility and it past, so I'm not sure if the hard-drive is on the go.

My hard-drive is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (500 gb), what are the chances of my hard-drive getting replaced (currently my work-horse laptop), I have 4-5 months left of Applecare.

Thanks for reading.
 
Evening guys,

I have Mroogled the condition of hard-drive chirping (maybe clicking, doesn't sound like hard-drive clicking 'click' though) as a symptom of the hard-drive going to die. The condition happens every so often, in particular during Firefox (Flash and Java) and Outlook usage. I have backed up, via time machine, and contacted apple via their express appointment.

I have analaysed the SMART condition via SMART Utility and it past, so I'm not sure if the hard-drive is on the go.

My hard-drive is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (500 gb), what are the chances of my hard-drive getting replaced (currently my work-horse laptop).

Thanks for reading.

Don't ever trust the S.M.A.R.T. status. It is a good idea in theory, but the developers consortium who made it, didn't give it the necessary robustness to be effective. Typically, if S.M.A.R.T. tells you that the drive is failing, it's already too late and in my experience, I've only seen it report such a finding once.

I believe that you should get the HDD replaced as soon as you can and it's good that you've already got it backed up.

If you have the desire and means, you can always run Spinrite on it to repair any damaged sectors and possibly prolong it's life. You'd need to take the HDD out of your MBP and connect to it an IBM PC to run the DOS-based program though. I've done that many times on Mac and IBM-PC's and have had great success in repairing and restoring dying HDD's if not just long enough to save a user's data before it's finally too late.

Here is my old MBP HDD inside a Dell PC with Spinrite running on it.

IMG_2003.JPG


IMG_2004.JPG
 
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One question, how to explain to Apple care (hoping to increase the chance of getting my hard-drive replaced) that the problem comes and goes, as today it's working reasonably well.
 
One question, how to explain to Apple care (hoping to increase the chance of getting my hard-drive replaced) that the problem comes and goes, as today it's working reasonably well.

Just explain it to them, and if you can, leave it with them for a day so they can observe it.
 
Definite drive failure on the way. Happened to me with my Macbook a few years back.

Back up to to external drive or copy what you need to the cloud then buy a new drive.

Thank goodness for time machine
 
UPDATE: Applied online for the Express assistance/trouble shooting service, via Apple care. Received my call 1030 and organised a meeting with a Genius at 1430. Explained, albeit long-winded story, the situation and how it is issue that is on-n-off. He said OK, ordered the HDD and now I shall wait for it to come and get it replaced. I, then stupidly, asked about diagnostic tests which pass with flying colours.

Thanks guys. Hooray for Applecare!!!
 
UPDATE: Applied online for the Express assistance/trouble shooting service, via Apple care. Received my call 1030 and organised a meeting with a Genius at 1430. Explained, albeit long-winded story, the situation and how it is issue that is on-n-off. He said OK, ordered the HDD and now I shall wait for it to come and get it replaced. I, then stupidly, asked about diagnostic tests which pass with flying colours.

Thanks guys. Hooray for Applecare!!!

Sounds like they're going to take care of you; good deal!
 
Hey guys,

Apple replaced the HD after dropping off on a Sunday got it back Monday evening. All is good, however today, after 2 weeks, it has chirped twice. Are there any programs that cause the hard-drive to chirp? Or could it be that I didn't shut down the computer before moving/carrying to work.

Thanks
 
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