Western Digital Hard Drives extremely loud

[bruincal]

I bought two hard drives for my computer about a year ago. One was a 40 GB, 2MB cache, 7200rpm Western Digital and the other was a 100 GB, 2MB cache, 7200 rpm Western Digital. For the past few months, they have been getting extremely loud. When I first installed them, I noticed how quiet they were, but now recently, they sound like a muffled drill. Its that mechanical motor sound, but fairly high pitched. I downloaded the diagnostic software from Western Digital's site, and the test said that the drives were fine. I have other drives in my other computers from WD, Maxtor, and Seagate, and all them are much older than those drives, but much quieter.

Does this mean that my hard drives are failing? I sit about two feet away from my computer, so the noise is really annoying. Anyone have this problem too?

Thanks!

 

[Rav3n]

I feel like if you defragged the drives it would help... I am not familiar with the sound you are describing, but I know that defragging substantially cuts down on HD access, which would also cut down on sound production. I think you should also check the screws holding the HD's in place because they might be loose - or you may just want to tighten them anyway. Actually, you might just want to remove the HD's and stick them back in - dust them off or something. The other thing - do they produce noise ALL the time? Do they only produce noise when in use? When idle?

 

[mechBgon]

Sort of a zzzzZZZZING! sound? Been there, heard that I think you can RMA them for that reason, if you want. And I think WD will advance-ship you the replacement if you put up a credit card as collateral. That assumes your drives are still within their warranty period, of course.

If you wanted to try something different, a drive with fluid bearings would probably be a good bet... they should age more gracefully than ball bearings.

 

[bruincal]

Originally posted by: Rav3n
I feel like if you defragged the drives it would help... I am not familiar with the sound you are describing, but I know that defragging substantially cuts down on HD access, which would also cut down on sound production. I think you should also check the screws holding the HD's in place because they might be loose - or you may just want to tighten them anyway. Actually, you might just want to remove the HD's and stick them back in - dust them off or something. The other thing - do they produce noise ALL the time? Do they only produce noise when in use? When idle?

Thanks for the reply! My computer is a Gateway 700X, and the mounting brackets are those ones that slide the drive in ... no screws at all. They produce noise all the time ... its a whiny, high-pitched noise. I think it may be the 40GB drive only ... When I turn my computer on, I can hear the drives spin up. First the master, which is the 40GB drive, and the noise starts. Then I hear the slave spin up, which is the 100GB, but it doesn't add any noise.

Sort of a zzzzZZZZING! sound? Been there, heard that I think you can RMA them for that reason, if you want. And I think WD will advance-ship you the replacement if you put up a credit card as collateral. That assumes your drives are still within their warranty period, of course.

If you wanted to try something different, a drive with fluid bearings would probably be a good bet... they should age more gracefully than ball bearings.

Thanks mechBgon, I'll email WD and see what I can do!

 

[helpmeout]

I've been using the same WD 40 gig HD you have for about 3 months with no noise. (I'll keep my fingers crossed). The defrag is a good idea. I do maintenance every Saturday including defragging with VOPTXP. What I especially like about this utility is that it keeps your swapfile right on the edge so drive activity is minimized. It's also very fast. I don't like XP defrag saying the disk doesn't have to be defragged, and even when you force it to run, it leaves fragmentation. VOPTXP defrags 100%. I don't work for them, and this isn't a plug, it's just a program I like a lot for the job it does. Kind of expensive, though, at $40 for one license,but they have a 30 day trial.

 

[bruincal]

I took the drive out, plugged it into a spare power supply and turned it on. ... Then I got my MD recorder and placed the mic near the drive as it was running by itself. This is what it sounds like:

http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~bruincal/wddrive.mp3

(its a 400KB mp3 file)

 

[mechBgon]

Aaack, sort of a table-saw-running-in-the-garage sound

 

[XRaider]

Dude! Dang, I thought my IBM 60GXP 40gig was loud b4 it croaked. I would say that time is running out for those guys. BUT, I also heard older machines from work that had old HD's in them that sounded like that, but ran fine. Cheap manufacturing of spindle motors. heh Call WD up. See what they say. Hopefully an 800 number.

 

[Rav3n]

THat is DEFINITELY a bad sound... its possible one of your drive platters got loose That would be lots of fun. Yeah, I wouldn't use that HD anymore, and I would send it in ASAP