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

[ProfMoriarty]

Hi

I bought a Barracuda 7200.11 500Go ST3500320AS (firmware SD15) And a Nforce 630i motherboard (Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H, F6 bios).

The hard drive is still in sata 150 mode, i didn't remove the jumper (removing it will really be hard i think it's sooooooooooooo small...).

When the hard drive is idling, it produces series of little clicking noises, like a noise of a head inside hitting something. It's not a read/write noise, the head doesn't seem to hit the platter.

It can do this noise like 10 times very quickly, then nothing for a few seconds, then again these noises, etc...

I tried many combinations, AHCI mode or IDE mode, with Windows XP (native sata drivers or Nforce sata driver), UBuntu 8.04, and it changed nothing, the noises were still there.

I tried the hard drive on a another comp (nForce 410 inside), and... no more clicking noise... only the standard spinning platter sound.

I did many tests with SeaTools and HDTune : they find no problem at all.

Any ideas anyone ?

Thanks.

[postavy]

Hi

I just bought the same drive from NCIX (read there forum for this drive this is a common problem) From the getgo the drive made this clicking noise, randomly every few seconds.  I contacted Seagate they say it is a sign that the drive is failing.  Seagate says they have no knowledge of problems with this drive but if you check here you can see it is very common. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27144&vpn=ST3500320AS&manufacture=Seagate  check the forum at the bottom of this page.

I am now trying to get Seagate to replace the drive.

[Giorgio]

Same problem with my STM3750330AS.

When clicking, write operation is slowed down terribly...

What did you do?