hitachi hdd noise?

[zaku]

i have a thinkpad running on a hitachi dk23da 30G hard drive.
it does a sound like what you hear a camera's shutter noise (?) from time to time (not associated with hdd loading, a separate noise).
the hard drive's loading click noise is all normal and runs pretty quiet.

i wonder if that's normal for those hitachi drives? i've heard the load/unload mechanism of the head implemented on these drives but i don't think it happens that often??

by the way, i've run the hitachi DFT and it passed all tests.

[tripper]

ati tool

[GomJabbar]

Look farther down the page, and there is Feature Tool (v1.99).

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

The Feature Tool allows you to:

* Enable or disable the read-ahead or write cache.
* Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
o Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
o Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).
* Change the predefined capacity of the drive. This option can be used in situations where there is a BIOS limitation and the drive is not recognized. See the PDF Users Guide for specific details.
* Switch the Ultra DMA mode
* Change Advanced Power Mode - allows you to change between the lowest power consumption and the highest power consumption (maximum performance level).
* Show Drive Temperature - shows the current drive temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
* Configure SATA interface - adjust maximum speed and enable/disable Spread Spectrum Clocking.

[dsvochak]

If the "camera shutter" sound is new, you may have a problem. But then again, you may not.

In my experience, the older IBM/Hitachi drives are a lot noisier than the newer ones. And they get noisier as they get older. As long as it's passing the DFT, you're probably okay for now.

On the other hand, there are 2 groups of computer users: those who have had a hard drive fail and those who are going to have a hard drive fail. A good reliable backup system is probably in order.

[zaku]

thnx for the replies

what's the ati tool?

i've already tried the hitachi tool but the image file came out the wrong size so i can't get to make the bootable cd. ( i don't have floppy drive on my t20)

btw i got this used so i don't really know if this sound was there from the beginning. but i've searched around and some says this is normal cuz of the load/unload mechanism. just hope this won't decrease the hdd life.

[dsvochak]

According to tripper, in this thread ( http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=18764 )

ATI tool lets you fiddle with the acoustic management, ie slow it down a tinsy bit for quieter operation. HGST also has a program on their download site. Both 7K drives are way too noisy without it IMHO. The end result isn't Seagate, but it's a good compromise.