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

[jmr1948]

Hello,

I recently bought a 1.5 Barracuda drive and it seems to be running fine, except for a noticable click (with a little grinding noise) on powering up and a click on powering down.  All test show drive is fine.  I just want to be reassured that the drive is ok, otherwise I can return it.

Thanks

[jmr1948]

Not sure is this forum is moderated, but would appreciate a reply.  When I google "clicking" verdict seems clear: hard drive is headed for doom.  Don't want to put sensitive data on this drive till I have a clear explanation. Alternative is to return it to store and try another brand, like WD.

Thanks again,

jmr

[Matt_85]

hi , jmr1948

i'm exactly in the same situation ! ( i have CC1H firmware  revision )

i tried to search for ST31500341AS'  normal poweron  noise , but don't find anything really helpful , even on youtube

the first  ST31500341AS i purchased madesame sound @ poweron & a small click only at powerdown, behaving normally in the middle...

however this summer, 3 months after purchase, it decided to deny me the access to all the data within it, fortunately this situation lasted a couple of hours.

after this fault the drive behaved like nothing happened, no loss of data !

I returned it to the seller two weeks ago who gave me in exchange another ST31500341AS...

meanwhile i obviously put sensitive data on a secondary hdd 

the point is that new drive makes exactly the same noise in powerup & clicks in powerdown!!!

i have purchased so many hdds, but no one that's heathy makes that weird sound..

i want  to get so badly  a video of ST31500341AS powering up or anything else to solve this riddlle , just as you

any ideas?

Message Edited by Matt_85 on 10-31-2009 05:08 PM

[fzabkar]

Some drives use an automatic air driven actuator to retract and latch the heads when the air pressure drops at spindown. This latch is released at spinup when the air pressure rises.

Pages 47 and 49 of the following document discuss the automatic actuator lock in a Quantum drive:

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/documentation/manuals/Fireball_Plus_AS_Product_Manual.pdf

The clicks at startup and shutdown may be the sound of the lock being released or engaged.

Laptop drives park their heads off the platters on a loading ramp. The start and stop clicks in this case may be the sound of the heads moving up or down the ramp.

See this Hitachi document:

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/9076679E3EE4003E86256FAB005825FB/$file/LoadUnload_white_paper_FINAL.pdf

You could ask the data recovery experts at HDD Guru for their opinions:

http://forum.hddguru.com/hard-disk-drives-data-recovery-and-repair-f1.html

Otherwise, ask your question here:

http://en.rlab.ru/forum/index.php?topic=695.0

I have found "Doomer" to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

[Matt_85]

first of all ,thank you for the reply & the detailed explanation

i forgot to mention that  st3150034as is a sata2 3,5" 

propably  you're right stating that noise is due to automatic actuator lock;

however mobile hdds i own make different noise (while parkink their heads) from this one ; they make a more distinct sound that lasts lesser than st3150034as.

sure i'll  follow your suggestion  to ask further, maybe making a video of the issue,

i'll post the link in that topic as well ,so you can hear that noise by yourself & give me your opinion about it ^^

[fzabkar]

My research leads me to believe that Seagate's internal desktop drives park their heads on the platters whereas their laptop drives use load/unload ramps:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&message.id=15830#M15830

I suspect you're concerned about whether you're hearing the "click of death" that a drive sometimes makes when it is having difficulty reading a particular sector. If so, then it may pay to think about what happens when a drive powers down.

If a drive is powered down by the OS as a power saving measure, then I would expect that the OS would flush its write-behind cache. I would think that the drive would also flush its own cache to the platters, as well as any updated SMART statistics. I don't know if either of these operations would involve reading. Laptop drives would also typically perform their own Automatic Power Management (APM), independently of the OS.

In the case of a power-down at the main switch, the drive would automatically retract its heads without performing any data I/O. AFAICS, any clicking you hear at this time would be related to the parking lock, or to the unload ramp. The actuator retraction mechanism could be air driven, or it could be electronically driven. In the latter case the motor becomes a dynamo, and its rotational kinetic energy produces a decaying voltage which lasts just long enough to power the voice coil motor controller chip while it is retracting the heads.

One test you could do to eliminate the effect of the OS is to disconnect the drive's data cable and then power it up and down. Be aware that some drives may be configured to power up in standby (PUIS), in which case they will wait forever for an ATA command to spin them up.

Message Edited by fzabkar on 02-11-2009 05:22 PM

[Matt_85]

i have done what you suggested, just to be sure that OS is not involved

but the noise remains the same, now i recorded a video , here's the link :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKqnK57kNM

what do you think about it? 

consider that on poweron it makes the same sound of the first  ST31500341AS  purchased

in my opinion that noise isn't good

bye Matt

ps i have disconnected all other drives in the case prior to make the video, so i'm sure that's  ST31500341AS  speaking ...

Message Edited by Matt_85 on 11-02-2009 07:01 PM

[fzabkar]

I tried several times, but Youtube and/or SWF crash my browser. My Internet machine is an old socket 7 box running Windows 98 and Opera.

In any case I don't feel that I'm qualified to give an opinion. You would be better off asking the data recovery experts at HDD Guru:

http://forum.hddguru.com/hard-disk-drives-data-recovery-and-repair-f1.html

[Matt_85]

ok , thank you anyway for the effort 

i have returned it to the seller because it clicked while normal use also

i'll post here what the seller tells me about that Hdd

bye Matt