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HDD Rattling?

Eclipzify
By Eclipzify
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After countless hours of figuring out why I couldn't diagnose the problem, I have found that I have a faulty fan - yes it was that simple. One of the fan blades oscillates out of its straight path at high rpm, just enough to cause it to rub against the metal frame of my PC. Thanks a tonne to those who helped me out, very very happy it will be a simple fix - it sounded identical to a Hard Drive failure I had heard before..

Posted

Hey guys of LTT, first post here.

 

I am having some Hard Drive Rattling, and I cannot seem to find the reason for it. Been happening on and off at boot for the last month. I have 2 hard drives, a WD Black 500GB and a WD Black 2TB (can list model names if it helps). I have been hearing this rattling sound every one in four or so boots, and when it does rattle it usually ends two minutes after boot. It never makes rattling when I am normally accessing the drive long after boot, for normal operation of the drive which is stumping me... Problem is, I can't diagnose which drive it is as the noise magically vanishes when I take out the power to one of the two (doesn't matter which of the two I take the power out of). It may just be pot luck that the noise has stopped through fiddling around with the drives, and could indicate a head scratching on the platter but I am not sure and so thought in the meantime I could diagnose this problem 10x faster with the wonderful expertise here on LTT! 

 

Included is the noise recorded on boot, please take a listen, it may help to save my drive :D

HDD Rattling.mp3

HDD Rattling.mp3

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Your drive is dying, replace it ASAP.

You can use Crystal Disk Info to see the damaged sectors, and a bunch of statistics that cna indicate which drive is the one failing. It is most likely the one that brings up the most relocate errors.

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download the following programs

 

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-hd-health-monitoring-and-diagnostic-programs.htm

 

http://www.acronis.com.sg/en-us/personal/hard-drive-health/

 

use them to check the health of the HDD

 

 

could you try to remount the HDD?

 

it could be vibration because the HDD was not mounted properly

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could you try to remount the HDD?

 

it could be vibration because the HDD was not mounted properly

 

I'll give it a try although it seems unlikely, I've had both hard drives for over a year and it's only been happening recently, my case features a tool-less pop-in lock (CM 690 II Advaced Case). I'll give those programs a run in the meantime, thanks!

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I didn't think this was safe due to electrostatic discharge? I try not to touch components whilst the computer is on...

No as in like just touch the top of your HDD while it spins up. What I'm suspecting is maybe your drive cages are rattling as it spins up, since the rattling sound stops after it boots.

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Ok so I have booted up my computer multiple times after, re-mounting and changing all the HDD's to different bays. I haven't heard a single rattle yet, and so hoping for the best. I remember that when testing a while back it never happened when I had the case off to check which HDD, but as soon as I put the case back on it was rattling. Maybe it might have just been a bad rattle somewhere. I'll do a complete backup of both hard-drives and just wait until it happens again I guess, it appears at this stage to be back to normal, possibly just having a month-worth of fits. Thanks huge for those that helped, I'll post back asap if it happens again :C

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Well if you look at it a HDD has moving parts, so if a moving part gets damaged its boud to make some noise, your drive is dying!, i had the same problem after dropping one of my drives...Do a complete back_up

 

You can't diagnose a dying HDD just from a noise though, what I am after is a little bit of diagnosis into the problem so I can find out how to fix it :/

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After countless hours of figuring out why I couldn't diagnose the problem, I have found that I have a faulty fan - yes it was that simple. One of the fan blades oscillates out of its straight path at high rpm, just enough to cause it to rub against the metal frame of my PC. Thanks a tonne to those who helped me out, very very happy it will be a simple fix - it sounded identical to a Hard Drive failure I had heard before..

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