Hi,

I've an 80 GB ATA hard drive that is less than 6 months old. When I boot my PC, the hd makes a weird sound (like choking, I know it's the hd because the red led is on... like when the hard drive is under hard work).

The only temporal solution is to turn off, wait, and turn on again the PC. Usually after one or two off/on processes the PC boots as usual and, noise stop and performance is as expected. A couple of days ago I've to repeat the off/on process more than I will like. I've everything backed up in dvds...

Aren't there any utilities to diagnose common problems with hard drives? How to know when is time to change the hard drive?

I assume it's a linux filesystem, so you should be able to use fsck

For winblow$, there is of course scandisk. I think that System Rescue CD and maybe even the Ultimate Boot Disk might have these tools if you're looking for a live CD to run it from.

Yes I use only GNU/Linux filesystems

How can I use fsck? Is it a command ...cuss I didn't find it.

Also, the hd is completely usable after boot. What I wanted to know is if this noises are signs of the aging (so to speak) of the hd.

It should already come with your distro. Try whereis fsck

From the description it does not sound like a filesystem problem. Try running the diagnostics disk and see if it indicates a problem. If you do not have such a floppy/CD disk you can download the tools from your drive manufacture's website. Also checking the drives SMART data might indicate a problem.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983

Have you ruled out dirty or bad cooling fans? One of my older PCs cooling fans will make noises until it warms up. IMO from your description it could be the drives motor not wanting to spin at power on. Is this a recent condition? Check the logs and the output of dmesg to see if there are any drive errors.

Noisy hard drives can often be a sign that they are on their last legs. Make backups of any important data, and don't store any new important data on it. It may continue to operate for another few months but if/when it fails it wouldn't come as a major surprise. Good luck with it

Thanks everyone for your help. I'm currently reading the linuxjournal article. I don't think it's a fan, because when my computer sounds at boot the red led that represents hd activity lights on... Although I may check the PC on the inside.

That's what I tought

I've always at least 2 back ups; one in hd and one in dvd. If I'm making a new back up I use new dvds. I was saving for a new computer (first Apple Mac ) ...I hope the hd lasts until that.