Clicking sound of death

[Bill]

My computer has started, fairly recently to make a dodgy clicking sound. It happens randomly, maybe two clicks then nothing for hours.

It's like "click beep click beep", a mechanical click and a beep from the pc speaker, I think.

It seems to be coming from the front of the computer, near the hard disks (I have two, 27Gb C, and 80Gb D)

I was reading somewhere else about the Dreaded clicking of death, and horror stories of people losing hundreds of gigs of "stuff", because their hd started clicking.

So. Is this a sign from the PC Gods to backup everything and hope that the computer holds out long enough to get everything on cdr (of which i have none handy, and no money to buy)


help!

thanks in advance

[Darksun]

All hard drives make a 'clicking' noise of some sort when accessing the drive. However, frequent 'buzzing' noises could indicate something is very wrong with the disk. I'm no expet on hard drives, so don't take my word on this. Plus, you should always make backups anyway.

[Starfyre]

A simple "buzzing" can be a loose case too

As for the beeps, check the BIOS Beep codes...should be a page somewhere with all beep codes on it, or it's in your Motherboard's manual.

[Jackmn]

Is it a clicking sound, or more like a clickish-crunching?

[tabasco boy]

if its a clicking sound from your hard drive its normal but if its more of a loud sound sick clicking sound like a skipping CD probably its just your hard drive having some bad sectors (near its death) on it which is a sign of problems to come try doing a surface scan and see if its detecting a few bad sectors and if it does get a new hard drive and transer all your data ASAP.

you don't wanna loose all your valuable data don't you.

[ReflectingGod]

When your Hard disk starts to sound like a cement mixer it is time to think about buying a new disk....

<edit>I just replied here, but tabasco boy is still shown as last poster. WTF is going on???</edit>

(Edited by ReflectingGod at 10:23 pm on May 19, 2003)

[Bill]

I'll do a surface scan, thanks for the advice

I just realised, that the click noise sounds just like what happens when i shut down the computer.

and

I seem to remember a couple of months ago, i was doing something, then i heard this click, and the computer instantly reset itself. Not restarting, but just kind of dying, then booting from the beginning again.



(Edited by Bill at 10:55 pm on May 19, 2003)

[Jackmn]

If you plan on continuing to use that hd, burn everything you want to keep to cd.

[Confederate EDA]

Sounds like you might be in for a head crash...where the little head (on the end of the reading arm) actually starts touching the disk itself, and begins to physically damage the hardware.  When this happens, it's irreversible.

[Phydaux]

clicks and beeps could always be a modem dialing (but I'm sure you'd know what thats sounds like) could always be the fan blowing some wires against other things, or the different parts of your computer expanding and contracting from temprature changes.
just to name a few other possable problems.

and on a totaly different note... my PSU made a horrable whine last week just before it died. (not the easyest thing to replace, because of availability) scared me into wishing I'd backed things up... now everything is running again, have I backed anything up?... have I fu<snip - Ice>


(Edited by Phydaux at 8:26 am on May 20, 2003)

[tabasco boy]

as a rule backup every week or month. because its quite a hassle re-installing every program you have and configuring them from scratch which i learned the hard way awhile back.

(Edited by tabasco boy at 5:39 am on May 20, 2003)

[bgreene2001]

Hmm, the fan on my graphics card makes a funny buzzing noise all the time.  Quite annoying.  Luckily my systems so low-end that it could probably survive a few days with no fans (except the power supply of course)

[NeoThermic]

How long do you leave your computer before the HD clicks? Some HD's retract the heads to the rest position to save power and to prevent head crashes... my laptop does this after 5 mins of inactivity.
Sometimes its cause for concern... try taking out one of the drives and see if it is actualy the drive thats still in there. If it is, you could back up the data from one HD to the other...

NeoThermic

[Luigi300]

Unless it's the big one.