T42 Hard Drive Clicking

[GregM]

Friends,

I have searched the forums and it appears that while I am not the only one having a problem (seems to be prevalent amongst the X41 brethren), that there is not a definite solution to this issue.

My hard drive (at least I *THINK* that it is the hard drive) is clicking sporadically. This is a recent occurrence, as I have never heard this before.

I tried the firmware upgrade recommended in the X41 forums, and it said that it didn't apply to my computer. The IBM support person recommended I run PC Doctor diagnostics against the hard drive, and everything Passed just fine.

The machine is a T42 2373-H6U with a 60GB hard drive. For some reason I think this is the upgraded, faster hard drive, a 7200? I don't know how to look it up on the IBM website, and can't remember for certain.

Any other thoughts from the collective wisdom of this forum?
Any help is great appreciated, as this has proved to be quite an unnerving annoyance.

Many thanks in advance!

Regards,
Greg

[JHEM]

The 2373-H6U is a CTO (Configure to Order) machine, i.e. it's sold with NO preinstalled memory, HD, optical drive, etc., and devices such as those can be added during the order process or, in some instances, the machine is shipped bare.

You can easily determine which HD you have by simply right-clicking on it in Windows Explorer and selecting "Properties". Or right-click on the HD under Start> My computer> C:\

Now, to your clicking problem. Does the HD activity LED flash in time with the clicking? Then something is polling your HD, try turning off indexing.

Report back.

Regards,

James

[GregM]

Thanks, Bill. Had to call IBM, it is a 60 GB, 7200 RPM. FRU: 13N6807 Most likely manufactured by Hitachi.

No blinking lights, just clicking noise. It appears that the performance hasn't been effected ....

Does that help?

Thanks,
Greg

[christopher_wolf]

Download DiskMon from Sysinternals, that will give you a "Virtual" HDD activity light as well as monitor and log all the I/O events first off; then we will see what is up.

[fritz_the_blank]

My 7200 rpm 60gig disk was doing the same thing for some time, and now it has stopped. I believe that there is at least one other thread in this area about this issue, but I can't remember if there was any defiitive answer.

[GregM]

Friends,

Wanted to follow up. After my third call to IBM, the rep said that the hard drive must be replaced right away, because if it is clicking, it is a warning sign of impeding failure. So, they overnighted a refurbished hard drive, I ghosted mine to a different machine, replaced it, ghosted it back onto the new drive, and the clicking has stopped.

While IBM didn't acknowledge any defects in the drive as some threads have suggested, it appears that at least some support techs are willing to replace a drive that is clicking.

All the best,
Greg

[rosemarycane]

My first laptop did the very same thing. It was an Averatec. After booting it up for the first time, I noticed that the hard drive would making a clicking sound ever so often. This was not the normal hard drive behavior where windows was accessing the disk.

Long story short, I returned the laptop to Microcenter, and they replaced it. Hopefully you can get your situation rectified as well.

Best of luck,

Sean

[semaj]

If a hard drive in any of the computers I service has a clicking hard drive we back up the information and put a new hard drive in. the loss of data and time is uneeded and expensive. For home use you may be able to run on it until it dies but for business use don't mess around. make a good ghost image as soon as you can is the best advice i can give.

[Prince]

Read more about clicking problem here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=15769

I got a T41 that originally came with a Travelstar 5K80 40Gb Hitachi, then I upgrade it to HITACHI 80GB Travelstar 5K80 HTS548080M9AT00 5400 rpm ATA100 (8Mb cache),both have ticking problem.
It must not be hardware problem as both hdds (the original and the other one which I bought in another country) behave the same way. seems to me that they are by design that way but some of them tick louder!
They start ticking when hdd is not accessed frequently. I carried out a research, here is what I found:

1) It ticks when head parks.
2) Parking the head frequently make our data more secure on a laptop.
3) Ticking will not damage the drive.
4) Its not connected with the hdd cache.

I'm really interested to see how many people are affected by this problem. that's why i want to suggest Bill to create a sticky poll asking people whether they have ticking problem or not.

[Fox]

I have a ticking problem too. Just bought this brand new T42 (has had a long shelf time) and the hard drive has been ticking from day 1. I don't think it's a "click of death" warning sign - I've heard quite a few of these before on my desktop drives, but it is still quite annoying, especially in a quiet room. In my case, the drive just ticks all the time, except when under heavy use. There is no pattern to it. Just wondering if I should get on the phone to the IBM folks, I'm in the UK, and they aren't very brilliant here from the sole experience I've had so far with a frontline technician.

On other issues, this notebook seems rather flimsier than the older T41 I had? It creaks around the mousepad area and for some reason the casing "valleys" towards the mousepad, i.e. the wrist pads are not exactly straight, they slope very gently downwards from the edge to the middle of the thinkpad (where the mousepad is). Or maybe it's just my eyes playing tricks!

Anyway, just wanted to share my views on my particular T42 with the forum. This is one good reference point for all Thinkpad owners!

[cjberg]

My original 60 GB 7,200 rpm Hitachi drive clicked as well, and did so for about a year and a half without any problem. I only replaced it because I needed a larger 100 GB drive (which, by the way, doesn't click).