Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[some]

I have (according to Seatools) a 1TB Barracuda HDD - ST31000524AS with standard firmware JC45.  The HDD is about one month old and makes continious ticking sounds.

1.  This is the sound the HDD makes when booting.  Correct me if I'm wrong.  Listen from 6 seconds onwards.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MURTGDBY

There is a very loud 'click.'  Is this normal?

When the computer idles this is the sound it makes:

2.  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=268RJXJR    <This sound can be heard over all case fans and repeats over and over.

Is this normal?

3.  Seatools recognises the same drive twice when I only have one drive.

I've had a 500GB Seagate drive in the past and have had none of these issues.  Any information/opinions would be appreciated.

[Cantbecanit]

Full PC specs please.

[some]

Oh, sorry.  Full specifications as follows:

CASE - Antec 902 v3

CPU - I5 2500K

MOBO - GA Z68X-UD3PB3

RAM - KINGSTON HYPER X 1600 MHZ

ODD - Pioneer DVR219

GPU - GA GTX 560 ti

PSU - Corsair modular HX 650

HSF - Coolermaster 212+

HDD - As stated.

The PC was also assembled by a computer shop, so everything should be in order.

[Cantbecanit]

Specs look ok to me, the 650w psu should cope as long as it's not going bad already, I would send it back to the place you bought it from, if they built it then they have the responsibility to make sure it all works ok, and right now it doesn't, it could still be the HDD, but as it's so new you shouldn't start giving them excuses to blame you, one thing I would check is that the leads are snug on the back of the drive and MB port, they do move about.

Can you find the sound here 

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Also try and isolate the click, if you know it's going to do it and when, put a finger on the HDD to confirm it's actually coming from there, sound does travel in the case so you need to make sure you have the right component in the frame for the crime, fans and dvd drives can make these noises also, I assume the dvd drive is a sata one? if it is pull the leads from it, if it stops doing it re-connect to another port on the board.

[Cantbecanit]

And check this for the latest bios  http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3850#bios

And pay attention to the IRST driver as well, check in add remove programs to see if you have RST drivers or not, if you do you should have a taskbar icon showing like a drive icon with a green tick through it, if you do and it's V9, update it to V10 that is listed in the Gigabyte page, get the Autol driver at the same time incase that isn't loaded either.

Infact do this in order.

Get the MB set up disk out and load all the chip drivers it will allow

Get the latest ones from Gigabyte and install them      

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3850#driver

Then load the Autol one

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20018&keyword=autol&lang=eng

Then the RST one

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20215&ProdId=2101&lang=eng&OSVersion=...

At least then there is nothing been missed out, you may need re-boots between installs, and the PC will need to be in AHCi mode in the bios for the IRST drivers to load or you will probably get told this PC doesn't meet the minimum specs.