hi! i've searched through the forum and google, but still can't find a decent fix/answer for this:

i have an old (~7 years) ide hdd. until recently dualbooted linux and winxp, but decided to get rid of winxp. everything was okay for the first month, but now i get an annoying noise from my old hdd. sounds like it's reading/writing something constantly. thou disk's free space is not changing. the hdd led is not lit too. the system is working fast and stable as always, but i'm still worried about it.

debian lenny with 2.6.26-1-686 kernel and kde is installed on the problematic ide disk, but i also have one sata disk, which is the /home directory. both are ext3 formated. at first the sound appeared the moment linux starts booting and never stopped. i love to play with linux and "tweak" a lot the operating system, so i thought i broke something and of reinstalling debian. i left the /home dir untouched and reinstalled. it was ok at the beginning, i intstalled all the programs i need and restarted the machine a few times. no disturbing sound were heard. i turned of the computer.

later that day i turned it back on and the sound was back again, although it disappeared after about 20 mins and a restart. i've checked again everything. i have no running disk utilities, no preload etc. software (except konqy_preload, but the sound start before kde, so i think that's not the issue), no suspicious services (i think). when the system is idle, the cpu is at 0, but the disk still buzzes. the hdd led is ok when i copy files, install anything and so on. after the sound stops even if i use my pc at max, the hdd stays silent. and this happens only and after the pc is turned off a couple of hours.

so i'm wondering if debian is doing something like prefetching/defragmenting at startup that i don't know about or is it just my hdd too old and weared out already, or... i don't know? i hope someone has an idea what could be wrong!

thanks in advance

If the disk's light is not turning on and it's making a noise then there's probably some strange hardware problem there. backup your stuff and get a new one.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

You should backup your data. Sounds like your hdd is about to bite the dust. It could be a bearing on the spindle that is creating the noise.

Hard disks do not make noise if they are working properly. Seven years is a good long life for a hard disk. You should forget about diagnosing the problem with it and just buy a replacement as soon as possible and replace your failing disk. It is not going to get better. Get your information off of it while it is still working.

You will be much happier with the improved performance of the newer hard drives and with luck you will be set up for another 7 years. Don't waste too much time in your decision. You probably don't have long before the current drive goes down for the count.

Hard drives do make noise when working properly. It's a mechanical device spinning at a high rate of speed, sound is definitely generated.
The sound just should not be loud.


Heres a web page with sound files of various drive failures.. could be interesting to compare what you hear from your hard drive, to some of the sound clips.
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php


If this loud noise started recently, I would agree it's time to backup your data and get a new drive..

i agree with you guys. moreover i know well the sound of a dying harddisk. but this time it seems to react to operating system change. if i try a livecd, there's no suspicious noise at all. of course it boots from the cd then, not from the hdd, but hdd read/write is ok with normal noise. it's really odd... i'm keeping in mind that this is probably a hardware problem, but still... it's just that since i use linux i always have similar idiotic problems, that nobody've had. and it's only with my personal desktop pc. all the other linux machines i use are working perfectly... just my luck :P

it's an old hdd, so it's normal for it to be noisy. i have another 8 year old disk and it's working sound was always louder than my pc speaker but it's still working nowdays.

edit: the sound i get is just like when i copy files to that disk, but a bit louder. that is why i think, that something is using the harddisk

If you suspect the software, try running "vmstat 1" look at the io or swap numbers, they should be 0 with no activity.

Also, a default installation usually has locatedb which runs overnight and it goes through all the files to index them.

Hi,

If your hdd LED is not showing activity or non of the utilities show activity and you still have the noise. I still think it may be a hardware problem. You could move the hdd to another system and see if it is a hdd or controller problem. If it was a controller problem you would see data that indicated the errors.

Do you have the hdd securely mounted in the bay/rack? It could be a resonance problem. Some cheap chassis utilize thin pressed steel without ribbing for the bay/rack so the metal can transfer vibration therefore the noise will seem amplified. Actually if you feel a steady vibration then indeed you have a mechanical problem.

i tried to find/stop locatedb, but i don't have such file, such process running and i can't execute it in the console. i don't even have updatedb. it's maybe because i installed only a base system, and then downloaded only kde's base system.

it's not a swap file problem too, because i almost never get to use the swap file. plus my swap file is on the second sata disk. "vmstat 1" shows only 0 0 on swap si/so and swpd.

it looks to me more and more like some indexing/prefetching at startup. yesterday i turned off the computer for more than 3 hours and there was no noise after that. this morning i turned it on (after 6 hours) and it was back again. it stopped after 10mins. btw it usually happens in the morning... so... any ideas what am i missing? should i ask in the debian forum for a list of debian's indexing/prefetching/preloading and probably defragmenting services/programs that can run at startup?

edit: crontab is empty too

It could be one of the fans in your system that will be causing it. Another possibility is the hard drive is in its long diagnostic mode and you are not giving it a long enough time to do its work. If you suspect that the drive is going, the best time is now to do a back up. If you think it is the drive is going, do not power down the hard drive because that is the worst thing to do for a hard drive that is about to do just give up.

My Hitachi and IBM hard drives re-adjusts themselves after about 6 to 8 hours that it has been on.

so.. i took my time to back up everything, then installed windows on the problematic drive. it's still the same. i'll leave it as it is now... i've got debian on my sata disk now. and i'm fine. thank you for your support!

p.s. if my old hdd dies in the following 12 months, i'll be sure that it WAS a hardware problem. in the mean time i'll just use my headphones when booting to windows