Is my hard drive dying? (with sound file!)

Factual Questions
1

I have a hard drive that i use to back up my most important data. It’s a Seagate 160Gb internal SATA drive, mounted in a Rosewill enclosure.

Anyway, a week or so ago, i created a new folder on the disk, and added some stuff to it. I then realized that i had mistyped the name of the folder, but when i sought to rename it, the computer wouldn’t let me. Also, when i tried to delete it, and items within it, i was told that the operation couldn’t be performed, because the file or directory is corrupt or unreadable.

Some reading around suggested that this was a corruption of the MFT. I tried the solutions offered by Microsoft, to no avail, so decided to reformat the drive and then put the data back onto it.

So, i told the computer to reformat the drive, and did not check the “Quick format” box, so that it would do a full format. About half-way through, the drive started making a repetitive noise, different to the normal noise. It did this for a total of about 2 minutes. Then it went back to it’s normal sound, and the formatting appeared to continue as normal.

After formatting, i also ran CheckDisk, and at Stage 5 of Checkdisk got the same noise, for about the same length of time, and (if the progress bars were any indication) at about the same place on the disk. Again, it lasted a couple of minutes, then stopped. And, like the formatting, CheckDisk completely properly, and gave me no warning of errors.

Because it’s a little hard to diagnose something like this without hearing it, i’ve provided a sound file. It’s not great quality; i just paced by crappy headset microphone next to the drive while the noise was going. It should, however, give you some idea of what i heard.

Direct link to 350kb MP3 file

To me, it doesn’t sound like the more typical “tick tick” of a dying drive, but there’s something definitely going on that shouldn’t be. So, what’s the scoop? Should i give this drive up as a storage device, and just use it for non-critical stuff? Should i chuck it altogether? Or do you think it’s OK?

2

Sounds bad, I think it’s having trouble seeking. Non-critical only for sure.

This HD Tune program will show you any SMART data from the drive and may verify that errors are occuring.

3

It is dying.

4

You’ve not got the dreaded click-click sound, but it’s retrying over one area, so that area is likely bad. Dump it and get a new one. Note that many HDDs have warranties and you may be able to get a free replacement.

5

Thanks. I downloaded that tool, and ran the Quick Scan, which showed no problems. I’m now running the full scan, which should take another hour.

Yeah, i purposely buy Seagate because of their 5-year warranty, and my receipt for this drive is from November, 2005.

My concern was whether a seeking problem like this would qualify for a return, if the drive is otherwise working. Seagate has a downloadable program on their website called SeaTools, and they recommend testing the drive with this tool to see if it has problems. I imagine the sort of tests it does are not very different from the ones i’m currently running with HD Tune.

I think, whether or not the drive can be replaced under warranty, i will still get myself a new drive. Hard drives are incredibly cheap now. In 2005, i paid $129.99 for my 160Gb, and i remember thinking that i got a good deal. Even better, it came with a $30 rebate, making my final cost $99.99.

Well, right now NewEgg has a Seagate 750Gb internal SATA drive for $79.99, with free shipping. It’s an OEM, but that’s usually what i buy anyway. I don’t need any of the cables and other stuff, and the OEM drives have the same warranty as the regular retail ones.

6

Well, i ran the full test on HD Tune, and got the following result:

Image

As you can see, there are 3 damaged sectors, out of a total of 2,500. I tried to run SeaTools, but it wouldn’t work. When i ran it, i got an error and it crashed. A quick look on the Seagate forums shows that some other people have also had this problem.

Also, even if SeaTools would work, it would not read a hard drive in a USB enclosure; i would have to attach it to the computer’s SATA cable. Similarly, the Health readouts of HD Tune apparently only work with internal drives connected to the SATA connectors, so i can’t get a Health reading unless and until i hook the drive up internally.

So for right now, i’m just going to buy a new drive, and use the problematic one for non-critical stuff.

By the way, if a drive has a few damaged sectors, does anyone know if there’s a way to make the drive skip or ignore those sectors?

7

I forget the specifics, but IDE / ATA drives have special areas for mapping out bad sectors on the fly. If that area’s full, then it can’t do it any more. BTW Those aren’t damaged sectors. They’re damaged blocks, and 61 MB at that. It might be instructive to scan those blocks at the sector level.

Does your computer have an eSATA port?

Not a good move IMHO. Send it back under the warranty.

8

Unfortunately not. It’s not a very difficult job to whack the drive back into one of the internal bays; i just can’t be bothered right now.

You’re probably right. I’m just a bit worried that they won’t take it, given that they expect you to run their Seatools program on it, and i can’t do that because Seatools won’t work in my computer. I might get on their forums and see if i can get some feedback from one of their people.

9

For some reason, I read the title as “Is it hard to drive (while) dying?”