Is my HD going bad???

[JC]

The HD in my laptop sounds like a morse code machine only sometimes tho.

I peiordically (SP) get the blue screen, and I cannot defrag??

Do I need a new one or what.

[Sava700]

hmm sounds like it.. best to back up stuff now just in case it goes

[ghettoside]

A lot of hard drive manufacturers provide free utilities that either come on a disc w/ the hdd box, or freely downloadable from their website. Try running a hdd test utility, but I agree it sounds like hdd about to puke.

[maroon]

Be sure to back up your data before running any disk diagnostic. If your HD is on its last leg, one of those utilities may kill it.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Noise, blue screens, inability to complete a defrag?

Do youself a favor..pickup Apricorns EZ Gig drive transfer
http://www.apricorn.com/product_details.php?ID=228

A new hard drive (Apricorn sells those also)

And clone your drive to the new one soon as possible.

You have 3x sure signs the drive is about to fail....and I agree...trying to run some diagnostic or repair utilities (such as checkdisk)...can work the drive hard..and push it over the edge.

[purecomedy]

I've had a couple of posts out this year and I think it all relates to a bad Seagate hard drive.

In January I had the problem of the system ratching down from DMA 5 to PIO Mode (and making a funny sound when doing so) and the dark blue error screen that I think usually said "dumping physical memory". The sound was something I had never heard before, always a "click" sound like you hear on some BIOS screens on startup alternating with kind of a high pitched buzzing sound. The hard drive light goes on and off synchronized with the different sounds. I installed a new ATA cable and jiggled cables around and all was fine until May.

In May the same symptoms came back but with a lot of other strange symptoms that lead me to believe my motherboard was shot. First, the drive was a little more sporadic in that I could turn off the machine and come back the next day and use it for an hour with no problem. Second, the first day the problem occurred in June my 2nd hard drive went missing in Windows (ie. Drives E and F were gone). All of this lead me to think that I had a bad HDD controller on my motherboard, re-inforced by the clicking sound that really reminded me of a sound I commonly hear on BIOS screens (years ago mostly).

Anyway, seeing as I didn't have my internal speaker plugged in I think the Asus support guy was right...the sound is from my hard drive. I can't be sure yet I guess but I have such a good history with Asus that I was surprised my motherboard was bad (yes I've heard of bad Asus-AMD experiences, but to me Asus-Intel combos have always been really solid).

Here's the question:
When my hard drive clearly works for hours or months at a time before failing, what's to stop Seagate Warranty from plugging it in for 30 seconds and saying "it's fine" and sending it right back to me? Do I need to set this thing up as my 2nd hard drive and pound away at it to make sure it's dead by the time I send it to them?

[A_old]

Nothing stops them, but they generally run tests like surface scans to make sure it's good/bad. Download the ultimate boot cd and find "DFT" and run an advanced scan on the drive..see what it says...if you get a big red screen at the end, you're drive's bad.