Noise from Hard Disk Drive
 

Hi,

My "main" computer is a Gateway "Color Book II" laptop. It is
on every day from 7:30AM until almost 6:00PM. I have been
using it like this for about 7 years. It has a 1.6 GB hdd. Recently,
for the first time, the hdd started to "wine" (high pitched) for about
3 minutes. Then it became quiet and remained quiet. Afterwards,
I still have no trouble reading/writing files to the hdd.

Is this "wine" sound a sign that my hdd may be failing soon?

Thanks in advance, Brad

Before you type your password, credit card number, etc.,
be sure there is no active key logger (spyware) in your PC.

"Brad" wrote in message ...
Hi,

My "main" computer is a Gateway "Color Book II" laptop. It is
on every day from 7:30AM until almost 6:00PM. I have been
using it like this for about 7 years. It has a 1.6 GB hdd. Recently,
for the first time, the hdd started to "wine" (high pitched) for about
3 minutes. Then it became quiet and remained quiet. Afterwards,
I still have no trouble reading/writing files to the hdd.

Is this "wine" sound a sign that my hdd may be failing soon?

Thanks in advance, Brad

Absolutely. You're lucky the drive is dying gracefully and giving
you a chance to backup everything. Laptop drives usually don't
die this way.

"Brad" wrote in message
...
Hi,

My "main" computer is a Gateway "Color Book II" laptop. It is
on every day from 7:30AM until almost 6:00PM. I have been
using it like this for about 7 years. It has a 1.6 GB hdd. Recently,
for the first time, the hdd started to "wine" (high pitched) for about
3 minutes. Then it became quiet and remained quiet. Afterwards,
I still have no trouble reading/writing files to the hdd.

Is this "wine" sound a sign that my hdd may be failing soon?


Are you sure it's the HDD and not the fan? Laptop fans often become noisy
when cold as they age. If it is definitely the HDD, I'd back up your files
and look for a replacement as the bearings don't have to have much play at
all before you lose data and get head crashes. You should be able to pick up
a bigger drive, say a 6GB, for very little money on eBay.

Dave

"Brad" wrote in message
...
Hi,

My "main" computer is a Gateway "Color Book II" laptop. It is
on every day from 7:30AM until almost 6:00PM. I have been
using it like this for about 7 years. It has a 1.6 GB hdd. Recently,
for the first time, the hdd started to "wine" (high pitched) for about
3 minutes. Then it became quiet and remained quiet. Afterwards,
I still have no trouble reading/writing files to the hdd.

Is this "wine" sound a sign that my hdd may be failing soon?

Thanks in advance, Brad



It could go on like that for years, or it could die tomorrow. At the very
least backup your data now! 1.6 GB is nothing to backup these days and
you'll be kicking yourself if you don't do it.

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:06:22 GMT, (Brad) wrote:

Hi,

My "main" computer is a Gateway "Color Book II" laptop. It is
on every day from 7:30AM until almost 6:00PM. I have been
using it like this for about 7 years. It has a 1.6 GB hdd. Recently,
for the first time, the hdd started to "wine" (high pitched) for about
3 minutes. Then it became quiet and remained quiet. Afterwards,
I still have no trouble reading/writing files to the hdd.

Is this "wine" sound a sign that my hdd may be failing soon?

Thanks in advance, Brad

Before you type your password, credit card number, etc.,
be sure there is no active key logger (spyware) in your PC.


Any unusual noise from a hard drive is a bad sign. I have to admit
that I haven't noticed any connection between bearing noise and drive
failure though. I don't think I've ever actually seen a hard drive
fail due to bad bearings. I've seen dozens of bad hard drives and
most had perfectly quiet bearings. I've also seen lots of really
noisy drives that still worked fine.
Andy Cuffe

-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

-- Use this address after 12/31/2005