Noisy Hardrive on T500

[ts1971]

Hi,

I have a two year old T500 which I bought new and have been very happy with. Recently though within the last few days I've noticed that the hard drive is very 'clicky.' Strangely, the noise doesn't seem to synch up with when I would expect disk accesses. It's just as (and maybe even more) likely to make the clicking noise when the machine is idle as when I'm, for instance, searching the drive for a file or starting a program. The noise isn't quite constant but it seems to be happening more likley than not.

When I first noticed the problem I checked and was surprised to find that the 40 GB partition on which Windows XP is installed was very nearly full. So I deleted a bunch of stuff which freed up about 8GB and defragmented the partition but it seems to not have made any real difference. According to Windows the drive is a Hitachi model HTS722016K9SA00.

Though I haven't noticed any read errors or other mal effects, I'm obviously worried that this is the beginning of a drive failure. Can anyone recommend any free diagnostic tools that I might be able to run on the drive or offer any other thoughts on what might be happening?

Thanks in advance.

-ts1971

[dsvochak]

Hitachi Drive Fitness Tool: http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/#DFT

[rkawakami]

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm (S.M.A.R.T. monitor)

[ts1971]

Hitachi Drive Fitness Tool: http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/#DFT

Thanks for this suggestion. I downloaded and burned the iso and immediately had problems as it hung on the 'loading DFT' step. After some googling I was able to get past this issue by disabling USB support in the BIOS. Now I get a bit further. DFT loads and I get past the first few steps where it detects the master device. Unfortunately, it now hangs at 'Detecting IDE Secondary Slave...' I can't find anyway around this so I guess that I'm dead in the water with respect to the Drive Fitness Tool.

However, having disabled the USB support forced me to undock the machine and actually set it in front of me and having done so I'm not sure whether the clicking noise is really the hard drive at all. I think that it might be the fan. I don't really have any idea how the machine is laid out internally and the thought of taking it apart makes me a little queezy. The clicking seems to be coming from the upper left hand side of the machine - just about directly under the 'esc' key. Does this location make more sense for the hard drive or the fan?

Thanks in advance.

[rkawakami]

The Hardware Maintenance Manual for the T500 is here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 70068.html

This will give you information on how the system components are laid out and instructions on how to take it apart (and re-assembled it). From your description of the area where the sound is coming from, you might be hearing the fan. The hard drive is located on the right side near the "front" corner.

[ts1971]

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm (S.M.A.R.T. monitor)

Thanks for this Ray. I downloaded and installed the product and though I don't really know what any of the diagnostics mean yet, I do see 'OK' in all of the status columns which is encouraging. I had no idea that the SMART technology existed; pretty interesting stuff.

-ts1971

[ts1971]

The Hardware Maintenance Manual for the T500 is here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 70068.html

This will give you information on how the system components are laid out and instructions on how to take it apart (and re-assembled it). From your description of the area where the sound is coming from, you might be hearing the fan. The hard drive is located on the right side near the "front" corner.

Thanks again Ray. Having had a look at the diagrams in that document I'm inclined to think that it's fan. I wish that there were some way to know for sure before I endeavored to take the thing a part. If it does turn out to be the fan it would be sort of funny as I had the exact same problem with a T40 about three years ago. I thought that it was the hard drive initially that time too. Is this a common point of failure on ThinkPads?

-ts1971

[rkawakami]

Can't really say that it's all that common of a problem but it is one of the electrical items in the laptop that physically moves (apart from the hard or optical drives). Having gone through around 100 used Thinkpads over the years, I've only had to replace two or three fans because of noise or non-operation. Keep in mind that I buy parts or repair systems off of eBay so that kind of skews the data somewhat.

I have not had the opportunity to run PC Doctor on such a new system as the T500 but on older versions there's a fan diagnostic. It spins the fan up to the maximum (?) speed and I'm assuming that it monitors the RPM to make sure that it's running up to spec. You can download an .ISO file that when burned onto a CDROM (with a utility that handles .ISO images) creates a bootable disk. Find it here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 69537.html

[Harryc]

Remove the hard drive (1 screw) and boot up a Linux Live CD. If there is no noise it a hard drive problem, if the noise continues it's a fan problem.

[ts1971]

I have not had the opportunity to run PC Doctor on such a new system as the T500 but on older versions there's a fan diagnostic. It spins the fan up to the maximum (?) speed and I'm assuming that it monitors the RPM to make sure that it's running up to spec. You can download an .ISO file that when burned onto a CDROM (with a utility that handles .ISO images) creates a bootable disk. Find it here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 69537.html

Okay, so I first tried what Harry suggested and even without the HD installed it seemed that the noise was present. Wanting to be sure though I downloaded / burned PC Doctor and was surprised to find that the fan diagnostic passed. I still think that the fan is likely the culprit. One other strange development though is that the noise seems more constant now and maybe a bit louder. I can understand it getting progressively louder as the device fails, but why would it be more constant? That doesn't seem to make any sense. Why would the fan be spinning more frequently? In any event, at this point it is so annoying that the machine is essentially unusable.

So, I have a few additional questions at this point. Outside of the hard drive and the fan, can anyone think of any other system components which might account for a mechanical clicking noise?

And assuming it is the fan, can anyone recommend (for or against) any vendors for Thinkpad parts? I googled the part number (45N5490) and there were a bunch of hits. Most of the prices were around $65 which was more than I had expected. I did find one place - www.sparepartswarehouse.com - which had it for $45 and described it as 'factory direct.' Is there any reason to not buy from them?

Thanks again for the help I've recieved in this thread.

-ts1971

[Harryc]

You can buy the fan for $45 direct from Lenovo.
https://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/w ... PartNumber

The only moving parts in a Thinkpad are the hard drive, fan, and CD drive.

[ts1971]

You can buy the fan for $45 direct from Lenovo.
https://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/w ... PartNumber

The only moving parts in a Thinkpad are the hard drive, fan, and CD drive.

Thanks Harry, that looks like the way to go. I did have some trouble with the link though and made the mistake of placing the order over the phone with some kid in Argentina who I think only understood about 75% of what I was saying. I wasn't too worried about it because I assumed that he'd email me a confirmation with all of the order details so that I could double check them. After having placed the order I asked him to email me the confirmation and what I got was a one line email from him personally with just the confirmation number. Oh well, hopefully the right part will arrive.

Thanks again.

-ts1971

[ts1971]

Wow, the part already arrived. I ordered it over the phone late yesterday afternoon and it arrived at my door this morning at 10:20. Kudos to Lenovo.

-ts1971

[AJME]

If replacing the fan doesn't cure the problem, does it sound anything like one of these? Perhaps the middle Hitachi/IBM? That's what my T42 sounded like, prompting me to get a new Samsung drive.

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

AJME

[ts1971]

If replacing the fan doesn't cure the problem, does it sound anything like one of these? Perhaps the middle Hitachi/IBM? That's what my T42 sounded like, prompting me to get a new Samsung drive.

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

AJME

That's an interesting site, thanks for that. The noise doesn't sound like any of those though I don't think. The only possiblity is the 'stuck spindle' recording but I dont' think that that's it, and just by judging where it's coming from, the hard drive isn't the likely culprit. I think that it must be the fan, though I'm a bit confused by how it's behaving.

Yesterday I had to turn it off because the noise was constant and just loud enough to annoy me to the degree that I really couldn't concentrate on what I was reading. I intended to just leave it off until the replacement fan arrived but I needed some data off of the machine this morning so I powered it up and was surprised by the fact that after just a few moments the noise stopped and I've been using it all day with no issues at all. It's very strange.

-ts1971

[nikki605]

Thanks for this suggestion. I downloaded and burned the iso and immediately had problems as it hung on the 'loading DFT' step. After some googling I was able to get past this issue by disabling USB support in the BIOS. Now I get a bit further. DFT loads and I get past the first few steps where it detects the master device. Unfortunately, it now hangs at 'Detecting IDE Secondary Slave...' I can't find anyway around this so I guess that I'm dead in the water with respect to the Drive Fitness Tool.

I know this is an old topic, but some searching yesterday led me to it. I am having the same and I mean exactly the same problem trying to run the Hitachi DFT on my T410 as ts1971. I'm wondering if anyone has found a solution to the DFT hanging at the 'Detecting IDE Secondary Slave...' problem?

Twice yesterday I heard a single distinct 'clink' sound. I've heard it before from HDDs in other PCs. In those cases, the HDDs began failing shortly afterward.

I did follow Ray's suggestion and installed DiskCheckup. The SMART data shows all is OK. I've left it running with TEC enabled to see what happens today.

[rkawakami]

My only thought would be to pull the optical drive out of the Ultrabay and try again. I'm assuming that you have one installed in the system .

[nikki605]

My only thought would be to pull the optical drive out of the Ultrabay and try again. I'm assuming that you have one installed in the system .

Hi, Ray! I will do that (pull the optical drive) and run it for awhile that way to see if I hear the 'clink' again.

[rkawakami]

Ah, I was answering your question / problem about the secondary IDE controller issue with DFT. My assumption is that the optical drive is on the same controller and it might be hanging up DFT.

I too have heard a "click" sound coming from what I've always believed to be the hard drive. If it does it once, I tend to ignore it. If it does it again then I usually image the contents of the drive to another one, swap out the clicking one and tag it.

[nikki605]

Oh, gotcha. I'll try the DFT tomorrow with the DVD unplugged and post back.

I imaged the drive today with Macrium & created a Rescue boot disk... just in case.

There was no 'clink' sound today.

[nikki605]

Long story short, that didn't work. I disabled USB support in BIOS to get around the 'Loading DFT...' hang, which gets me to the User Agreement screen. Since I am booting from a CD, I pulled the DVD drive before clicking on the 'I Agree' button hoping that everything the DFT needed had been loaded from the CD into memory. But when I tried to click on the 'I Agree' button the mouse no longer responded & the laptop was locked up. I had to push & hold the power button to force it off.

It's odd to me that with Lenovo using Hitachi drives in so many of their laptops that the DFT won't load.

Oh well, I'll just keep monitoring it and making sure I have a current drive image.

I do have another question, however. When I start Macrium Reflect, it shows a 1.17GB partition called System_DRV and I don't know what that is for.

Screenshot http://i42.tinypic.com/2vc9jzl.jpg

Any ideas?

[nikki605]

One more thing - I went back to the DiskCheckup program and ran both the Short & Extended disk self tests. Both tests passed.

I'll just be aware of the 'clink' sound and continue to use the TP as usual.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[rkawakami]

I do have another question, however. When I start Macrium Reflect, it shows a 1.17GB partition called System_DRV and I don't know what that is for.

I believe that might be part of the Windows 7 partitioning environment. I know that each time I clone a W7 drive using Ghost 2003, I have to run a "repair" W7 boot CD on it before the drive is bootable.

ref: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 10%29.aspx

[nikki605]

Interesting. Thanks for the reference. It may come in handy if (when) I end up replacing this HDD.