Momentus XT, Momentus, Momentus Thin, MobileMax, and other notebook drives

[colex]

This evening I installed a Momentus 7200.3 in my Sony FE21M, and while I was pleased with the performance, I was NOT happy with the almost constant clicking NOISE the drive made.

I thought this problem occurred with the WD, but another WD user in Notebook Review Forum have solved the same issue with WD help support:

WD Response

During normal operation, a WD Scorpio 2.5" hard drive will make a clicking noise when attempting to enter into power-saver or standby mode.

This issue is caused by a system initiated power management command being interpreted incorrectly by the hard drive.

There is a WD Scorpio 2.5" hard drive optimization utility available to resolve this issue.

Look on this discussion:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=304132&page=4

There're many discussion on forum for this problem! Another here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=314016

Please Seagate HELP us, and give a NEW FIRMWARE!!!! Our ears will thank you

[ES]

I have the same problem on an hp dv2404.

Firmware on the sticker is SD13 but SeaTools states j339.

[ES]

I also found this - 5eagate Momentus 7200.3

which strenghten the idea that we need a firmware update.

I have been trying a few software including hdparm and power management software from other notebook

and hard drive manufacturer with no luck.

I have also been trying a few settings within windfows vista and disabling write caching  reduced the clicking 

noise interval to a more acceptable level.

Right click on Computer>Device Manager>expand Disk Drives>right click ST9320421AS disk device>properties>

policies>uncheck "Enable write caching on this disk>ok

Hope this helps

[colex]

OK, many thanks for info.

Contact yesterday Seagate technical support, and they tell me:

"If the drive is making a clicking sound a new firmware will not do anything. There would be something mechanical wrong with the drive. Most likely this is just a sign of the drive failing."

They would replace the hard drive.
Monday, after the backup, I send it in RMA.

I hope this can be useful, bye.

[pbanman]

Just wondering if there was a fix for this yet.

I just installed the same drive (brand new) into my HP NC8430 notebook and it makes constant clicking noises.

[pbanman]

It's really unacceptable as it is, something is not right.  I had no previous issues with clicking noises whatsoever on the factory-installed Momentus 5400.2

[Matt G]

I too have a Ticking ST9320421AS and its as annoying me to the point of biffing the drive back to seagate and telling them to jamb there untested firmware where it hurts. i had a drive that did this a year ago and a firmware update Fixed the faulty firmware.

The drives performance is awesome for sure, but the ticking is unbearable.

Currently I have to run a hdparm with the following to stop the constant ticking. Unfortunately the ticking comes back on a restart or resume.

hdparm.exe  -B 254 /dev/hdb (second HDD on my system so must use hdb instead of hda)

Seagate please address the fault.

[pbanman]

yeah i've been using quietHDD to reduce the constant clicking.  I notice the clicking is worse after startup.

i might consider selling this drive and going for a Scorpio..  hear that Seagate? 

[colex]

... or an HITACHI hard drive!

The issue can be easily solved by Seagate with a simple firmware update!

[academic8]

Hello,

Did you get any results back? did the new HD worked without noise?

thanks.