WD1200JB click of death?

[sniperruff]

ok i have heard of the infamous click of death as loud thuds and so on. but lately i have noticed my beloved WD1200JB (WD 120gig sp. ed.) sometimes has a "CLICK CLICK" sound when running, only a set of CLICK CLICK sound and nothing else. it is more like the sound when the HD starts up from cold. it happened couple of weeks ago and happens like once a week or so (that i have noticed) and i ignored it.

is something wrong?

my HD is almost full. is that the possible cause?
thanks

 

[Paperlantern]

my drive does that too every once in a while, ive never had a lick of problem with it, performing, or working, so ive ignored it as well, mine is a maxtor 10GB

 

[Jeff7181]

Do you have SMART enabled? If not, enable it and see what it says.

 

[Looney]

My 80gig WD does the same thing... don't think that's the click of death. I had an IBM that had the click of death, and although it sounds similar, the clicking happens much more often.

 

[stevewm]

What you are hearing is thermal recalibration. (TCAL)

As a drive's temprature changes the platters expand and contract. To continue to read data reliably the drive must re-calibrate itself.

On drives that use aluminum platters, a TCAL every 20 to 40 minutes is not uncommon. If the drive is in heavy use (and therefore experiencing alot of temp changes) it may happen every 15 minutes. Drives that use glass platters (such as IBM's hardrives) will not have to TCAL nearly as often, maybe every 40 minutes to an hour (depending on usage once again) as glass does not expand/contract nearly as much as aluminum does....

Some drives will TCAL whenever it is needed, even right in the middle of a data transfer, thus making the data transfer temporarly stop until TCAL finishes. There are drives that will wait until they are idle to perform TCAL, these are known as "A/V rated" hardrives since they will not interrupt a data transfer to do a TCAL.

Personally, under my normal usage patterns my WD 800JB does a TCAL about every half hour. It does sound very similar to the clicking sounds the drive makes during power up. The sound is very quiet, and unless I am specifically listening for it I never notice it. (my fans drown out all noise from my HDs!)

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: stevewm
What you are hearing is thermal recalibration. (TCAL)

As a drive's temprature changes the platters expand and contract. To continue to read data reliably the drive must re-calibrate itself.

I don't think that's what he's hearing, I have the same drive and maybe once a week it will make a sound like it's shutting off and instantly coming back on. Nothing else happens though, no data glitches or interruptions. The sound is clearly audible from several feet away. It's been happeneing for at least 6 months, maybe longer, and all SMART fields look fine.

 

[ChefJoe]

My 80 gig JB drive does this too. The loud click/thump, then spin up. I think it's just something these drives do.

 

[Brian48]

Maybe there's different revisions of the drive. My WD800JB doesn't seem to do this. I've been very fortunate to not have any problems or complaints with it yet. It's about 8-9 months old.

 

[PraetorianGuards]

I've had the same clicking issues but so far nothing has happened - the drive is still running like a champ. Hopefully it'll stay that way lol

 

[sniperruff]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: stevewm
What you are hearing is thermal recalibration. (TCAL)

As a drive's temprature changes the platters expand and contract. To continue to read data reliably the drive must re-calibrate itself.

I don't think that's what he's hearing, I have the same drive and maybe once a week it will make a sound like it's shutting off and instantly coming back on. Nothing else happens though, no data glitches or interruptions. The sound is clearly audible from several feet away. It's been happeneing for at least 6 months, maybe longer, and all SMART fields look fine.

i thought it was what stevewm said , but what jaeger said fits my symptoms perfectly. how do i enable SMART to check?

thank you guys i thought i was the only one =D

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: sniperruff



i thought it was what stevewm said , but what jaeger said fits my symptoms perfectly. how do i enable SMART to check?

thank you guys i thought i was the only one =D

I don't think you need to actaully enable anything. Just download a tool that can read the SMART values. On WD's site there's a Windows based tool (Data Lifeguard Windows version I think) that will do it and tell you what the fields mean.
Also AIDA32 can read them and give you a more detailed views. It's pretty cool, you can see exactly how many times the drive has been turned on and off, among lots of other stuff.

 

[Baileybbk]

Don't forget that if you haven't accessed it for a while and you have your power saving options on then the disk will be powered down.

I forget now and then, then hear the drive click and spin-up.