noisy hard drive

[Lesley Jones]

I am not very technically minded when it comes to computers but our hard drive seems to be quite noisy of late and I am wondering if there is anything we can do to sort this out ourselves or if we need to take the hard drive for a service or something.

It is making a sort of laboured whirring noise which does tend to go sometimes when you have been using the computer for a while. Having said that, I have been on here for 45 mins and it is still whirring away.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[JohnD]

order your new hard drive now

start copying your data to CD or DVD drives now

your old disk is going to fail

a new one might only cost £30 or so

 

[Barsteward]

Yep, start backing everything up now.
New one required.

 

[JohnD]

I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my whzzz hmmmmmmmmm BSOD

 

[django0909]

Yup, bearings are going. You can't have them serviced, the minute you open a hard drive up and the plates are exposed you won't be able to read from it anymore. Mine smelt like burnt toast when it finally went

 

[homertimpson]

I'd also seriously look at this product as well [that is, unless you already have it or something similar]
Acronis True Image 11
You'll be able to copy the entire contents of your current hard disc across to the new one in under 30 minutes -
as opposed to the 4-6 hours it may take you to do a clean os install/critical updates downloads/re-installation all your programmes etc etc.

An absolute time saver of the highest magnitude.

Homer

 

[disinfo]

did you recently upgrade to Windows Vista by any chance?

Vista has a lot more stuff going on in the background, especially when your computer is "idle"

Most of it is related to the search indexing, which is designed to make your computer seem faster.

 

[TheOriginalTonkaToy]

Are you sure it's your hard disk that's making a noise? Processor fans have been known to make noises on startup as well. Whip the cover off and check where the noise is coming from. If it is the fan then get it replaced. If it is the hard disk then try a defrag before you panic!

The advice given regarding backing up your data regularly should be followed in any event . I can recommend the Acronis product - I use it myself.

 

[tim west]

I'd also seriously look at this product as well [that is, unless you already have it or something similar]
Acronis True Image 11
You'll be able to copy the entire contents of your current hard disc across to the new one in under 30 minutes -
as opposed to the 4-6 hours it may take you to do a clean os install/critical updates downloads/re-installation all your programmes etc etc.

An absolute time saver of the highest magnitude.

Homer

How do you use it to backup, to an external usb hard drive?

 

[disinfo]

Acronis will detect a USB HDD if connected at bootup, it simply assigns it a drive letter like in Windows, drive E,F,G etc.

 

[tim west]

Acronis will detect a USB HDD if connected at bootup, it simply assigns it a drive letter like in Windows, drive E,F,G etc.

And can you expect the fast times quoted above using USB?

 

[disinfo]

With USB 2, yes.

I use acronis at work to reghost PC's.

I can have a new PC up and running in 6 mins with acronis (granted there is only Windows and office and a few other apps Installed)

Matt

 

[tim west]

Cheers

 

[Lesley Jones]

Thank you everyone for your replies, will now have the confidence to investigate a bit further and sort this out.

We have no noise today and everything seems to be running smoothly.

We do not have Vista.

 

[JohnD]

I hope you have finished backing up your data