hard drive clicking noise

[zamxz]

I have a T60 with a fujitsu 120 gig hard hard. The hard drive would make a clicking noise every 20sec or so ever since yesterday ( I have had this laptop for only a week now). When the hard drive clicks, it would produce a force enough to move the lower right edge of the laptop. I think the hard drive is defective, what do you guys think? Would Lenovo exchange this unit for a new one? Anyone has any experience with exchanging through Lenovo?

Thanks for your feedback in advance

[claudeo]

Loud clicking in a laptop hard drive is usually a sign of impending death. Assume it might die in the next 5 seconds even though it might last weeks--but it's like playing Russian roulette. Back up your important data immediately and get a replacement immediately.

[Simba]

It's the "death chant". I had this problem with my Dell e1505. Dell promptly gave me a new one. It's the end of the road for your hard disk. Get it replaced immediately.

[archer6]

I have a T60 with a fujitsu 120 gig hard hard. The hard drive would make a clicking noise every 20sec or so ever since yesterday ( I have had this laptop for only a week now). When the hard drive clicks, it would produce a force enough to move the lower right edge of the laptop. I think the hard drive is defective, what do you guys think? Would Lenovo exchange this unit for a new one? Anyone has any experience with exchanging through Lenovo?

Thanks for your feedback in advance

I have had very good experience over the years with ThinkPad issues. I would definitely call them right away and ask for a replacement.

If they say no, just be calm, pleasant and say that's not acceptable to you. That you want a new computer. If they still say no, ask to speak to a supervisor. Most of all you must be calm and polite, but perservere. They will usually work with you if you make it pleasant and easy for them. If the super says, no, then pleasantly ask (again) to have the call escalated and just be really patient until you turn a no into a yes. It's possible.

Worst case they say no, then thank them even though they did'nt help you , and call back right away because you will get someone else that will probably be more helpful. If/When they ask you to simply send it in to the repair depot for a replacement hard drive, tell them that you would be ok with that if the computer was a year old, but being so new, you feel the only resonable solution is a new computer.

I feel confident that you can get this done. If you cannot, PM me and I will provide some additional assistance.

Cheers....

[claudeo]

The hard drive is easily replaceable by the end user. I would try to ask them to send a new hard drive ready to go (i.e. preformatted with the service partition, etc.), before sending in the whole computer and risking the delays of transit, mishandling, etc.

In any case, the main hassle will be to back up and restore the configuration--AFAIK even sending the machine in for a warranty replacement will typically *not* include migrating to the new hard drive.

[fm13]

I have a T60 with a fujitsu 120 gig hard hard. Would Lenovo exchange this unit for a new one? Anyone has any experience with exchanging through Lenovo?

I had the same problem on my 2 weeks old T60. Lenovo exchanged 120 gb fujitsu for toshiba without questions.

[BadAndy]

If you don't want to hassle with the support tech, just tell them that when you turn the laptop on it makes horrible clicking/grinding noises and it won't boot into Windows. Before calling them, boot into the BIOS and run the hard drive diagnostic tool...if it fails on any part, write down the section it failed on because they will want you to do the diagnostic test before they'll replace it.

[steveg47]

I had the same problem on my 2 weeks old T60. Lenovo exchanged 120 gb fujitsu for toshiba without questions.

When Lenovo sent you the replacement drive did thay also include recovery cds?

[BadAndy]

I had the same problem on my 2 weeks old T60. Lenovo exchanged 120 gb fujitsu for toshiba without questions.

When Lenovo sent you the replacement drive did thay also include recovery cds?

IIRC, they ask if you need the discs when sending out a hard drive replacement.

[fm13]

I had the same problem on my 2 weeks old T60. Lenovo exchanged 120 gb fujitsu for toshiba without questions.

When Lenovo sent you the replacement drive did thay also include recovery cds?

No, I didn't need cds, I made disk image with Acronis before I returned fujitsu... (but they asked me if I need defaut image on the new disk).

[avesuni]

The clicking, when at low volume, is completely normal. See the Lenovo link below:


http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-42320

[hoya]

My Fujitsu 120GB drive makes the exact same noise, but considering it's so new I didn't even think that it could be a problem. is the consensus that these 120GB Fujitsu drives should be replaced?

[YourOldBuddy]

Check with the BIOS HD utility or PC Doctor before calling them. Speedfan also has a nice utility to check SMART status.

Lots of HD's emit small clicks without being broken. The Lenovo might be right to say no depending on the HD you have. X41's and X60's in particular have HD's that always sound broken. The X60 has a Seagate drive IIRC.

Dont know your model.

[binghe_jx]

first use the pc doctor 5 to analyse your hard drive. lenove accept this analysis as authority.
if you return it, they will do the same thing

[indigo]

My T42p had a Hitachi 80GB drive that died doing the same thing. It started ticking ALOT when the laptop would go idle, and would continue to do so until you cycled the power on it.

Im convinced it was a buggy firmware that killed the drive because I would wake up in the morning and here "tick tick tick", going all night long most likely.

Regardless, replace the drive as a request to IBM. While my drive didn't die immediatly, I started to see drive read/seek message in dmesg (linux user) , so I backed up everything and acted fast.

IBM/Lenovo will take care of you, just replace it before its too late

[indigo]

Fujitsu Drive Fitness Test:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... stic.shtml

[hoya]

Fujitsu Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... stic.shtml

more recent version here:
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/comp ... ities.html

[steveg47]

Before running any tests on a suspected bad drive be sure to do a full backup. Tests which heavily exercise the harddrive are likely to push a marginal drive into failure.

[mikemi]

I also have a Fujitsu 120GB harddrive that would make the clicking sound every 10 secs or so. So I called up Lenovo and got a replacement harddrive last week.

Unfortunately the replacement drive is doing the same clicking sound. All tests seem to report the harddrive does not have an issue.

Seems like people are saying the clicking sound is a normal behavior, but the noise is driving me insane! Anyway to reduce this clicking (apparently parking the drive head) sound?

Thanks.
Mike

[r. aster]

I also get intervals of clicking on a ten second cycle occasionally. Cannot related it to any external event or condition. Stops eventually or after a power cycle (I think).

I thought for a while that it was always APS-related, which makes sense--the APS was parking the heads a little too often after imagined vibrations. I think this was part of it but sometimes it happens even with APS disabled.

I ran the PC Doctor and BIOS-linked HD tests, and both just say PASSED in effect. When I tried to get the actual SMART data out, one utility (HD Tune) refused to show any SMART data and another (DiskCheckup) shows values and asserts they are all perfect (scaled scores of 100) but the raw data looks kinda like nonsense values in some cases, despite the perfect rating.

So. Jury is still out whether this is a real problem or just an annoyance.

RA

[floete]

well, the fujitsu hard drive on my week-old T60 just came down with the "death tic" about eight hours ago.

I got off the phone with Lenovo about 2 minutes ago and about five seconds after telling the rep that my hard drive was ticking, he said, "we'll send you out a new drive immediately." i didn't have to run any diagnostic tests or anything. wow.

on the downside, my new (toshiba -- I asked for it, he got it for me) hard drive won't come preloaded with everything, so i'll have to do that myself. big deal.

on the whole, i think lenovo did a great job, though obviously i wish the drive didn't have problems in the first place.