Noisy Hard Drive?

I have a 80GB Maxtor 5400RPM drive that started getting noisy over the past week or so. It's been getting progressively worse ever since then.

The last time I turned my computer off for 48 hours and turned it back on it was REALLY nosiy, but it got quieter the longer it had been on.

Right now it's in a mobile rack. The rack has a total of 2 fans and the drive doesn't appear to be getting too hot.

I sent a drive back about this time last year because of the same problem and Maxtor replaced it with the drive I have now. The only problem is now Maxtor won't take RMA's on any drive that doesn't fail their software exam and generate a code.

I figure in due time it will keep getting worse and eventually give up the ghost. Any ideas as to what might cause it to be noisy? Bearings going out?

It doesn't have any real vital data on it, but I'd prefer not to lose anything if I didn't have to. It's mostly just windows all my programs and downloaded files. All of the stuff I just can't bare to live without is on a seperate RAID array.

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Comments

Webmaster

Sounds like the typical problem I have had with every (4 or 5) maxtor drives I've had in my home PC. Maxtor drives are usually more moisy than other brands, but when it gets worse it usually (in my case always) means it will soon fail. I suggest replacing it.

matts5074

That's what I was afraid of.

I have a 40GB Maxtor 5400RPM and 2 x 80GB Maxtor 5400RPM on a RAID array all in the same machine and none of them are near this loud.

I had better luck with Seagate so I guess as these fail I'll be replacing them with Seagates. Looks like it's time to get out the DVD+RW and start backing up all those downloaded files.

BTW, I just noticed your avatar actually blinks.... I was reading your reply and I was like "nah, that thing didn't just blink at me.... " lol. Creepy.

bellboy

matts5074 wrote:

BTW, I just noticed your avatar actually blinks.... I was reading your reply Looks like it's time to get out the DVD+RW and staand I was like "nah, that thing didn't just blink at me.... " lol. Creepy.

maybe your computer is just possessed

viper75

Seagate Barracuda HD's is your best bet. They are quiet reliable HD's. I highly recommend them.

abcluke

I have always prefered Western Digital

Webmaster

bellboy wrote:

matts5074 wrote:

BTW, I just noticed your avatar actually blinks.... I was reading your reply Looks like it's time to get out the DVD+RW and staand I was like "nah, that thing didn't just blink at me.... " lol. Creepy.

maybe your computer is just possessed

And when you look long enough it will yawn

I too prefer Western Digital, but Seagate is as good as it gets as well. Still I always buy Maxtor, they're cheap, large and they make noise. Yes, I want my disk to make noise. Since I have a tower model under my desk I can't see hard disk activity so I like to hear it.

pandimus

I hate to bump heads, but my personal experience with WD is they suck. AT my last squadron, we bought computers from CDW, they came with WD. Those hd's would be the most comming in for replacement. We had hundreds of them. (of course these were older models, 2 years ago)We would replace them with maxtors which would never come back. I personally use Seagates. I love how quiet they are (regardless how loud my cpu fan is).

pandimus