Hard drive making a weird noise

My Samsung hard drive is making some weird noises. Sometimes, the noise stops but then starts again within a few minutes. It’s warranty is out of date, so I am worried that the noise may indicate an imminent failure.

First,…..

Backup your data. Now.

Please, Back it up… Back up your data if you even SUSPECT a hard drive issue…Then you can safely diagnose it…

Remember though, SMART is a quickie… If it fails, then your drive is surely toast, but if it passes, keep an eye on it. It just might have not reached that SMART test thresholds…

For Windows, try smartmontools…  For the macintosh, open utilities –> disk utility –> Highlight the drive in question, and look at the bottom of the screen.  You’ll see Smart Status.  If Disk Utility reports unavailable, chances are it  is an external drive.  (Most External cases do *not* support the smart protocol.)

Second, test your drive.

On the Macintosh, boot from a different drive…  And then run a tool, like Tech Tool Pro, and have it scan the disk media for bad sectors….  This will take hours, on any decently sized drive.  Disk Warrior can give an indication of hardware issues (“Speed Reduced by Drive Failure”), but that gives no useful feedback to the severity of the issue.

On Windows,

  • Double-click on My Computer to open the My Computer window.
  • Select the disk that you want to diagnose and repair.
  • Choose Properties from the File menu. You should see the Properties window for the drive that you selected.
  • Choose the Tools tab.
  • Click the Check Now button under Error Checking Status.
  • Depending on your version of Windows, choose either “Thorough” or “Scan for and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors.”
  • Click on Start.

The Chkdsk tool will probably require a reboot, and once again, it will take quite a while, depending on how large the drive is.  Windows will sometimes report the results in the EventLog, but often you will receive no useful information…