Humming Hard Drive

I have had this computer for a few years,
and basically redone everything inside ,
except the motherboard, and fan.
I turn my baby on today and my hard drive is humming!
Not the usual start up noise,
more of a sound like your car makes before the AC Fan turns over,
Like that sound!
Like a whirling , without any motion sound.

I am hoping one of you guys have some experience
installing a new fan and can send me somewhere for instructions!
OR...
Maybe it's my hard drive fixin to bite the big one ( YIKES!!)

How do I know whats going on with My Baby??

Before you tear it out, first rule out that it might be loose?


How loud is the hum, could it be that it is loose, causing vibration between it and the cabinet?

Or is it really loud, like something wrong inside of it?

Any grinding or rattling type of noises?

might be good to shop around for a new one, imo. Just in case.

While it is still functioning, a complete transfer of everything is possible, with no data loss. Most new hard drives come with an install disk, where you can specify that the new drive is to replace the old one, and everything will be duplicated to the new drive, including the Operating System (bootable).

Instructions to do that vary from manufaturer to manufacturer, but are very similar.

But if you wait until it is too late, than all will be potentially lost.

So depending on your budget, I would strongly suggest looking for a new one, if it is indeed going "south".

The worst that can happen if the drive is not dying, is you have assured yourself with a new drive, and can use the old one as temporary backup storage. And rest easy in knowing that your boot drive(with the OS on it) is in tip top shape.

2 cents.

but as always, I recommend that you get a second opinion as well.







[edit on 2/23/2007 by Mechanic 32]

Thanx Mechanic,
I backed up everything on my external,
and a duplicate with Norton Ghost
but am still in the dark as to what the noise is.
I keep thinking it may be electrical, it's seems like
a surge and slow sound.I do have all of my things on power strips
If it bites the big one though, I am now ready.


Thanks for taking the time to answer!

Sincerely
Ex

Are you sure it's not the fan. Maybe your fan needs cleaning?

Are you sure it's not the fan. Maybe your fan needs cleaning?

You know you might be right!!
I backed up everything and never opened my case.
I will look into that tomorrow!
Thanx for the advice, it slipped right by me

Do yourself a favor and try to get whats important off of it before it goes down on you like a flat tire. As others have said it could be something loose but I doubt it. My notebook did the same thing and I got most of what was important off of it before it bought the farm... I would have loved to have another 10 minutes though

The hard drive will have a natural hum from the spinning of the disk.
If your fans are dirty, they will spin very loudly.


If you clean your fans and the noise still occurs, then it may be your hard disk. Take your computer in to servicing quickly.

If your hard disk is spinning loose, this could cause damage to the disk inside, and, if damages, could range from random errors to not even starting up.


THR

Yeah, the apple kid up there beat me to it.

I was going to say, open your case and stick a pen in the fan, that will stop the fan (duh)... then see if you can still hear the noise. If you can (and you dont have any CD's in the CD rom) then yeah, its your hard drive, and it's about to bite the bullet, unless it's not anchored.

If it's your fan, then just clean it.

If it's your CD rom... then the CD you have in there is just badly moulded.

If it's your hard drive... well, at least check to see that it's anchored properly. If it's not screwed in tightly... then any minor vibrations will cause it to rattle against the case and sound alot worse than it is.