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My HDD is making a lot of clicking noise... Bad sign?

SamIchi

SamIchi

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
2,716
137
For the past couple of days, it's been clicking, not a loud click, but, you know the click when it starts searching. Even when I'm not doing anything it happens. I just restarted and it seems a bit better. Should I be worried. It's a not an old HD, Installed in my MB about 5 months ago? Not really sure, but still a short time.
 
Check your SMART status and do a backup. When mine died recently it didn't even make a sound until it was borked, so look at this as a good time to back everything up!

Best of luck!

Edit: but you probably already know to do a backup.
 
I had a hard drive that had the clicking and lasted for a short period of time. I was lucky. But, it was slow is searching and would keep clicking and not perform any commands for periods of time which was actually a sign of HD failure. I cloned it and then replaced it. If it is under warranty, I would want it replaced with another one. You could run Tech Tool Pro to see if the hardware tests pass. The bottom line is that it is unreliable.:(
 
My normally silent HDD went into a major loud clicking fit the other day and my powerbook's performance slowed to almost a complete system crash. I knew from experience that clicking HDD could be VERY bad news, so I immediately forced a power off, restarted, and all has been fine since. My data is backed up and I have other machines to use in the house, so I'm not too worried, but it is a definite warning sign.

Often, new clicking sounds from a HDD means bad news. The action that causes the clicking sound itself can cause major disk damage as one of the known sources of a clicking sound is caused by the HDD head slamming back and forth against the drive mechanism. So if you hear clicking from your hard disk IMMEDIATELY shut down your computer and run disk utilities. I've had hard disks die after clicking. I don't know if that's the standard advice, but that's advice from my personal experience.

Iomega's Zip drives were famous for the "click of death" which once it started clicking, not only did the click mean the drive head was gouging out rips in your disk, but the drive itself now would click-destroy any other perfectly fine zip disk inserted into it, and even worse the disks were now carriers that would turn any other functional zip drive into a disk killer also. Or at least that was what people were saying at the time.
 
tMac85 said:
it said i need to repair disks, by putting in my osx cd.

will this wipe my hard-drive?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure exactly which "it" you're referring to that told you to do repairs. But assuming you're referring to Disk Utility, then no, it will not wipe your hard drive, it'll repair the disk and its contents if possible.
 
motulist said:
My normally silent HDD went into a major loud clicking fit the other day and my powerbook's performance slowed to almost a complete system crash. I knew from experience that clicking HDD could be VERY bad news, so I immediately forced a power off, restarted, and all has been fine since. My data is backed up and I have other machines to use in the house, so I'm not too worried, but it is a definite warning sign.
Often, new clicking sounds from a HDD means bad news.
Click to expand...

Your absolutely right! It is bad news. I did some restarts and it did seem help , but temporarily. The drive will fail sooner rather than later. It is good you are backing up your data. As I have mentioned above. I think you would be way better off by cloning the drive and just replacing it. That way you won't be worried at all. Peace of mind is more important that wondering when it will fail.:)
 
Is the hard disk a Seagate 60GB SATA manufactured late 2006/early 2007 ?

If so - do a search and you may get a shock !!
 
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