Tonite rite now, as i was getting ready to hit the sack, i went to do my religous reboot of the system before i hit the sack.....and i wound up sitting in front of my computer for almost 15 mins....when it finally did drop out to the bios for the restart it sat at detecting ide drives for about 5-10 mins before it did anything, the whole time, my HD light indicator was solid red with an occasional flicker of some activity......well when it did detect my drives it booted, i got the familiar asus voice telling me the POST was ok......booted to a black screen, set there for a min, then the familiar xp welcome screen.....set there for a min....then set at the desktop while my computer loaded my 4 things that start with the computer to the task bar.......this took almost 10 mins in itsself........i think im lucky im even able to rite this message out

im pretty much against turning my pc off at this point until i figure out what im gonna do.......over the last month or two i have noticed what seems like my hard drive is taking longer to do things.......its a 80g WD 7200rpm......and just within the last 3 or 4 days it will be doing something, and my computer will almost lock up for asecond, then ill here like this semi loud *clic* noise and everything will be done just like it should....almost like its getting stuck and freeing itself

as im writing this, every min or two, my HD light lights up solid for about 30 secs, then goes out, even tho im not doing anything.......

Is my HD on its last 48 hours? i can buy a new one, and i have a back up drive in there in case it does outrite go out on me......but suggestions would be helpful

my Processor, memory everything else seems fine, since ive got the system up and running ATM, i was able to run some tests on them, and they check out A-ok.......help!

well everytime i try and do something now my computer has a real chore doing it...basically anytime my computer needs to access anything on the HD......im almost positive its the HD.....i got shut down everything i didnt need and started up PCMark2002 and here is a screenshot of the scores my HD received.....they seem WAY low......the drive is ata100....i think an avg of 30'ish mb/s, something has got to be wrong

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That's a decent hard drive, but if it's starting to make noise it is time to ensure you have a good backup. Sounds like it's ready to die (pun intended). There is really nothing you can do once it starts to make the click of death.

its the first time ive ever heard a drive lock up then make that clic sound and go rite on working.........so i take it that this clic of death is something pretty common on a dieing drive?

and if its the drive my OS is on that would basically wreak havoc on just about everything i do i assume

It's a physical error that will eventually degrade to the point that the system will no longer recognize the drive. Yes, the click of death is usually attributed to IBM drives, but it happens to all models.

I have a IBM 120GXB @80GB (Revision 1.0 the real bad one)and its the drive thats supposed to die, its been clicking and making horrid noises since i bought it in october last year, but it keeps on keepin on and it actually scans faster and has faster sustaned reads then my Western digital 80GB SE
It even made worse hd of the year award:
http://www.ocaddiction.com/articles/...standworst2k2/
The hard drive flew in front of the compotition, but dies jalfway through the race(or its supposed to anyway muahaha )
Though enough about me, I think that the problem with your HD is:
1. Loose IDE cable (hey its possible)
2.ATA set to ata33 legacy or sum sh|t in bios (also possible)
3. actual drive defect, RMA that b|tch

Noobish, glad to here your having good luck with your IBM, but that sound it makes in Normal for it, this other clicking sound is even louder then what your hearing.

Those settings are BIOS settings, and it's possible, but not likely, as BA said, this is probably a dieing HD, and the owner is lucky that he is getting a warning that it's dieing and has a small chance to back up his current data. I hope he doesn't waiste this gift his ol' faithfull drive is giving him

He can't RMA it, it's an old drive.

I know a lot of WD drives have 5 year warranty.
Maybe worth a try and contact WD.

wow, yeah dude im pretty sure ur HDD is dieing, that happend to me like 2 weeks ago, same thing, started taking forever to load (if it even loaded), and it started making noises, thats a big red flag to start backing up, try this
back up all ur stuff
then do a low level reformat
u might just have ur hdd corrupted
so try the low level, and if that doesnt work then ur hdd is dead
see if its underwarrenty
good luck man

i guess i will have to give a format a try, i spent almost an hour running a thourough scan disk last night and during the scan disk my drive made a ungodly humming noise that had never been there before, so im pretty sure its time to put this faithful servant out to pasture........clicing and humming, i know humming is a sure sign of something usually going out.....but oh well, no time to format now, have to go to work, ill do it when i get home.......ill update then if i can get my system to boot up after pillaging the hard drive..........luckily i have a secondary HD i backed all my things up to i didnt have cd's for

oh well.........

Check what the DMA setting is in the device manager. I think it should be 5 for an ATA 100.

you also might want to make sure the bios isnt using an old programmed I/O mode, something that shoud kinda jump out at you in the summary screen during boot up, make sure you arent using ATA-33 or 66, ensure that the drives access method is something that the drive can handle (go in the bios and dont do an autodetect, set the variables on yer own, its usually something like or around enable block mode, or in another area it will allow you to set another variable to large access method, the details of these escape me at the moment...

make sure you check device manager, check the onboard ide controller, and check the channel (and all other channels) to ensure that they are using nothing less than DMA mode 4, if you see something like PIO in there, then change it to DMA and reboot and pray....

check for viruses in the BIOS, boot sector, and OS, find a utility that can verify your MBR integrity, update your ide drivers, check for dust or condensation on or around the sensitive areas involving the drive, bake a cake, join a bowling league, and check yourself for chiggers....

last but definately not least, ensure your IDE cables are properly plugged in, not kinked or broken, and make certain that your 7200 rpm drive has room to breathe, those things get mighty toasty, if all else fails, try lowering the settings or update the firmware, and if that dont work, sell it on ebay as a untested yet assumed working pull from a business computer... some numbnut will buy it, just dont guarantee no DOA....lol

fu3lman, that is the best idea I have heard today! LOL

ive got a a7n8x mobo, just to let ya know............ive nver messed with any settings, and everything checks out in the bios, ata100 on both my drives, my cables are fine.....although i guess i could try a differant set just to double check, but i cant visibly see anything wrong with them, there not kinked and the cables are snuggly in there ports.....

wouldnt the onboard virus checker that runs at bios start up....virustrend chip away or something notify me if there was something wrong in the bios or in the MBR?

i need a bigger hard drive as im into lan parties and stuff now and do alot of leaching of iso's and whatnot for spawned games at the lan's......so i think ill go with a new HD, and we'll see where it goes from there.....cant buy it till tomarrow tho =( kinda sucks

anyone know of aprogram that i can scan the MBR with? and how exactly can you check the bios for virus's? i dont think ive ever actually did that before....never needed to

zerodude01,
the best solution is to contact WD and tell them your problem.
Its the smartest thing to do as they been dealing with their own drives for many years. WD always makes quality stuff.

I leave my machine running 24/7. I am running on a 40 gig WD.
According to WD, their hard drives are made to last for 100 million hours.

And another thing, you dont want to mention iso leachings on PR as some people here would get mighty mad.

hehe ive been around a little longer then you have gladiator, trust me i know whats ok and whats not....now if i came in like some previous newbies have and asked hey everyone where can i leach some iso's or something like that then id be in trouble=P

but since i only use them for spawned games at the lan, cause any other time i dont play those type of games.....spawned games are perfectly legal and will allow you to play using a duplicate copy of the orginal cd key =)

so dont ream me

Dude I really don't care, I just saw how mad some of the PR members got when someone mentioned ISO leaching before.

Anyways, I might be a newb in this site. But I have been dealing with computers for a good 9 years now.

guys, its pretty obvious is a hardware problem.. and nothing to do with software..


id bet money your drive is going bad, and i would pay money to have people stop saying "your ide cable is loose", "check your bios settings"...

no software problem would make your drive sound like its possessed.

Check Ur IDE cable...it may be loose

(hey slug..i accept paypal )