# Hard drive squealing periodically - whats wrong?



## giligone (Nov 1, 2009)

Hi, my hard drive has been making strange noises of late. It's a very high pitched squeal that starts very soft, then rises in volume to a piercing level, then abruptly stops in about 1-2 seconds. It used to do this sporadically when my virus scanner was running and it concerned me. But the system diagnostic tools always came back with my HD being "fine".

 Well, the last few days its been doing this more and more frequently. Now, my obvious first thought would be it is failing on its last legs so to speak. But before I shell out 100 bucks on a nice new drive I wanted to get a few more opinions. Your thoughts?


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 1, 2009)

If it's always done that you shouldn't be worried but if it's getting progressively worst then prepare yourself to buy a another hard drive.  After reading my post start backing up important files (emails, photos and other important documents and files) onto a thumb drive, compact flash, CD/DVD, etc.


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## giligone (Nov 1, 2009)

Yea, I've been backing up my data regularly on an external hard drive for a while now as a precaution. 

If, I got a new drive, and set the current drive as a slave secondary, if it failed then would it do any damage to my system?


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## TheLaughingMan (Nov 1, 2009)

As long as your OS is not installed on it, no.  The worst it can do is fail and corrupt all the data on itself.  HDD don't produce enough current when they crash to hurt any other parts in your computer.  One day it will just not mount or stop showing up as installed.


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## Wile E (Nov 1, 2009)

TheLaughingMan said:


> As long as your OS is not installed on it, no.  The worst it can do is fail and corrupt all the data on itself.  HDD don't produce enough current when they crash to hurt any other parts in your computer.  One day it will just not mount or stop showing up as installed.



And sometimes they lock up your computer until you unhook them. Once you unhook them everything goes back to normal.


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## giligone (Nov 1, 2009)

Ok, good. I just ordered a nice new drive. Its squealing so bad now. Like every 30 seconds... dunno how much longer I've got...


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## TheLaughingMan (Nov 1, 2009)

2 hours, 20 minutes, and 42.5 seconds from this post until failure.


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## giligone (Nov 1, 2009)

hahh! that bad huh? Well thanks for the info.


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## TheLaughingMan (Nov 1, 2009)

giligone said:


> hahh! that bad huh? Well thanks for the info.



Its probably not that bad, I was just trying to make the situation a little lighter.  I say take the opportunity to get a better, faster, and/or larger drive.  Then look into your warranty about the pending RMA.


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## giligone (Nov 1, 2009)

Yea, I ordered this bad boy. Should speed things up nicely.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=TSD-1000EADS


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