i have had my pc on all day; about 10 mins ago, the hard drive sounded like metal being bent in a cartoon (sorry for the crap analogy, its what it sounded like lol) then made a very odd noise, like a handbrake of a car; explorer crashed and i almost died when i realised my coursework was unsaved!! fortunatly when i opened explorer by the task bar, all apps were ok.

i heard this sound yesterday, but i thought it was something else. i remember hearing it over 6 months ago, when the drive was new. do hard drives do this if they are overheating?

the pc is running fine at the moment and my mission critical coursework is backed up (on floppy :o )

should i be looking for a replacement or is this just because the pc has been on for so long?

oh yeh, the hard drive i have is an ibm deskstar 120gxp 82.3GB

Tis called a head crash on the HDD. There's a metal arm that reads a spinning disc inside the HDD which stores all the information you have. The head on the harm sometimes gives out and if you have had a compaq or hp before that happens oh 10 times a year.

Start looking for a new HDD. How long ago did you buy the HDD itself? IBM offers 3 waranty types. One year, 3 year and 5 year. I'd contact IBM for a replacement if possible.

Congratulations, Your a Moron!
Compaq / HP uses IBM / Fujitsu / Maxtor Drives.

So, technically its not there fault, its the problem with IBM Drives anyways. A Manufacturer has nothing to do with defects of products in the systems. They are only there to warrant them.

Id Perfer you not bash the company I represent =D

plus Hitatchi have taken over all of IBM's HDD assets - including warrenties. so IBM doesnt really have anything to do with it anymore.

just wondering whether u have "hard disks off" option enabled in power settings. I'd be inclined to believe it was a routine disk power down, sometimes this can sound a bit loud.
But explorer crashing , disk head crashing out of nowhere .. as in under normal power circumstances is weird. Get a new Seagate mabbe.

*hands goliath a tissue*

Next time buy a MAC.... :finger:

Anyway i have heard a lot of complain abot IBM hard drive too. If you want to make sure your course work is safe and don't want to spend your cash for a new hard drive, go get a thumb drive. If you want to get a new hard drive, I suggest western digital.

ur joking right?

yeah yeah IBM got a lot of trouble with their new technologies ... but SEAGATE Barracuda ownz ... always on and no single crash here

i brought the ibm coz it had an editors choice from pc plus magazine. i dont think ill be reading it again....

rnt seagates supposed to be shit slow?

get the western digital 7200 rpm with 8mb cache. It should be fast enough.

I'd replace hard drive and get a Seagate or WD

First of all, is the drive still under warantee? How old is it? You can find out if it's still under warantee by getting the serial number off the drive itself. As I recall, IBM has a utility program you can download that will test the drive for a variety of conditions along with generating a report. It's a DOS application, if I'm not mistaken. They (IBM) used to have a whole slew of utilities for hard drive testing and evalution (all free).

I bought an IBM SCSI A/V drive a few years ago that failed. I downloaded their testing software and it reported what the failure was. I called IBM, told them what had happened, what the results of their software "test" was and they dropped-shipped me a brand new drive the next day. They even provided a return shipping label (no charges to me) for me to return the failed drive in the shipping box the new one arrived in.

I called the shipper (don't recall who it was), they came out the next day and picked it up and I didn't even have to leave the house. That's how good IBM is about replacing failed drives (at least that's how good they were a few years ago). I have no idea what their policy is today but they are a GOOD company to deal with. As long as the drive is still under warantee and not stolen (they do check the serial number to make sure it hasn't been reported as being stolen, by the way), you should get a new drive for free. Those kinds of "clicking noises" you're reporting are NOT normal. That drive is on it's way out and WILL fail completely.

ALL hard drives eventually fail. They are electro-MECHANICAL devices that DO wear out. I've owned drives from EVERY manufacturer over the years and had drives fail from them ALL. The Seagate Baracuda is suppose to be stone-axe reliable. I've had 2 of them fail on me. My current boot drive is a Seagate Cheetah 15K RPM, Ultra-SCSI drive that seems to be rock solid. I've got three WD 120 GB Special Edition drives that I bought right after they came out that are still rock solid. The Cheetah and the WD drives WILL eventually fail though. It's just the nature of the devices. They are mechanical, they produce friction, they get hot, the moving metal parts fail ... and life goes on. Get used to it.

Later.

my bro's ibm deskstar died on him after bout a year or so, i on the other had have the WD1200JB (120g w/ 8mb cache) have it for about 2.5 years now on for 23.998/7 and it still running solid 8)

One thing I wondered is if anybody knew how long a Seagate barracuda should "survive"...