Is my HD about to DIE??????

[JW8725]

I have a mac mini, only had it for 4 weeks though its been on a lot. I've started to hear this sound as if a ball is being dropped on a table. Its become more and more frequent. Also I can now hear the HD churning away which I could have sworn I couldnt do before. Its still very faint but nonetheless audiable. I little bird tells me this could spell the end of the HD? Impending Doom and gloom?? Please help?

BTW I've installed the SMARTreporter and its not found anything wrong with the HD. Its showing the green light!

 

[MacTruck]

How much ram you got? If not enought like 256mb the hard drive does ALL the work and can die alot quicker.

 

[JW8725]

I have 512MB RAM

 

[dmw007]

Hmm...not sounding good. Your HD might be close to death.

 

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says...try running a utility on your drive if you have one...if not try something free like SmartReporter to check the drive's status. Back up anything you want to keep - if it is the drive it could fail at any time.....oh yeah!

 

[gregorydanger]

I say back-up whatever is most important to you (if you don't have access to an external drive that can back-up your entire drive) just to be on the safe side. If it DOES die and you can do a clean install of the OS, do that before you take it in to get checked out and wait to see if it croaks again.

Only reason I suggest that is because when I got my iBook, I noticed similar noises coming from it about a month after I got it. When I took it in to the Apple Store to get serviced, I didn't mention that I did a clean install of the OS and when they sent it out to get fixed, all they did was reformat the drive and then sent it back. It died again a week later and I went in and told them specifically to replace the drive and they did. If I'd done that sooner than later it would've saved me a trip.

Hope that's not the case though!

 

[shadowmoses]

It doesnt sound good, If i were you i would back up data and take the mini in to your local apple store and they will probably replace the HD under warranty....

SHadoW

 

[savar]

I have a mac mini, only had it for 4 weeks though its been on a lot. I've started to hear this sound as if a ball is being dropped on a table. Its become more and more frequent. Also I can now hear the HD churning away which I could have sworn I couldnt do before. Its still very faint but nonetheless audiable. I little bird tells me this could spell the end of the HD? Impending Doom and gloom?? Please help?

BTW I've installed the SMARTreporter and its not found anything wrong with the HD. Its showing the green light!

It could be a fan that's dying. This happened on my Mom's g4 a month or so ago. I swapped in a new fan and its working fine now.

Edit: OOps sorry didn't notice it was a mini...yeah I guess the HD is the only possibility.

 

[kzg]

Seagate Drive?

I read somewhere that if you have a seagate drive in the mini this sound is actually the hd doing a self test or something. Can anyone confirm this?