2012-04-22, 22:28 | Link #1 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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Hmmm... I think my HD's about to die.
For the last 4 days or so, around once a day, my laptop would freeze and the dreaded continuous metallic clicking noise can be heard from the forward vents. Usually only happens when I'm either playing or watching a video, but generally random. Experience tells me this is one of the dreaded signs of physical HD failure. I'm on the mark right?
Any way to repair this? I'd rather not have to buy a new HD if I could, so I'll want to begin with actual repair. Assuming of course it can't be done, well, any advice for bulk file transferring from the old HD to the new one?
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2012-04-23, 00:46 | Link #2 |
blinded by blood
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Click of death is pretty much irreparable. Time to buy a new hard drive. As for transferring them over, I'd suggest an external USB to SATA hard drive adapter to do the transfer. Laptops usually don't have the facility for plugging in multiple hard drives, so connect your new HDD to the adapter and connect the adapter to USB and power and voila, transfer your files!
http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-CB-ISAT...5159935&sr=1-6 Just make sure you don't nuke them again when you reinstall Windows.
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2012-04-23, 02:18 | Link #4 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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Well right now I'm running Windows 7 Backup and doing a Disk Image conversion. I have a 500Gb Seagate 5400RPM my friend gave me last month so I'm doing a HDD image transfer to this one. Hopefully the damn thing doesn't freeze as I've been writing the disc image for the last 2 hours.
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2012-04-23, 07:24 | Link #5 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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Okay I doubt it's the HDD now. After doing backups the laptop froze still with the clicking noise. I doubt it's the video card because I don't get graphical errors and artifacts.
Still not sure what the problem is now. The freezing doesn't really bother me and it doesn't cause any real problems since it really only happens once a day, it's really more annoying than anything. Currently running memtest to check my sticks.
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2012-04-23, 08:08 | Link #6 |
Senior Member
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You were running a backup and it froze, so you think it's not the HDD? What kind of deduction is this? As long as the HDD is in use and it freezes, it's likely to be that. Also memsticks or anything else for that matter do not make the sound you described.
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2012-04-23, 08:45 | Link #8 | |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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Quote:
The only parts I can think of that can do those sounds are either the video card, the mobo or the DVD drive, and I don't think it's the DVD drive since I barely even run anything there anymore. I'm also starting to think the sound's coming from the speakers and not the vents, so now I have to even consider software issues. Fuck.
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2012-04-23, 11:42 | Link #9 |
Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Philippines
Age: 47
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You can use HDTune Pro (you know where to find) to change the AAM settings by lowering it to 128. Did just that when the old Hitachi 80gb I had was repeatedly freezing up the PC, and after cutting down the AAM it no longer held up and I was able to copy over the files to the 250gb drive I bought.
Also, there are cases when the PC somehow feels like skipping (the mouse cursor pauses for a fraction everytime it gets moved), so I used a VBscript to reset the DMA settings (after finding out it went down to PIO mode). This script is normally used for Acer Aspire Ones with this known issue, but can also be used on any PC using an IDE drive. Anyway, another possibility of the system freezing are memory defects. Hence you'll have to download, burn and run Memtest86 just to check if any of the modules are okay, and to find out which one needs to be replaced.
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2012-04-25, 02:48 | Link #10 |
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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I can give you a few more ideas on the problem (but I don't know if anything of this applies).
The hdd can be perfectly fine but still getting power down/sleep mode commands from the notebook's SATA-controller. If such a command is followed by a power up/wake up command and those are send repreatedly in succession, the hdd doesn't know what to do (park heads, unpark heads, park heads again...). If you can, try to disable any power saving features that target the hdd in your notebook and see if that heals the problem (remember the fault can be in a driver and or the motherboard SATA-controller as well). Another reason for a hdd to do this, is an unstable power supply.
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2012-04-30, 05:39 | Link #11 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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So I recently did the following:
1. Rolled back HDD drivers and reset DMA. 2. Reinstalled the software on my touchpad, then turned it off since I use a mouse all the time. 3. Solved a resource conflict between the keyboard and the Mobo. 4. Ran CCleaner and fixed 800 registry issues. 5. Removed my older RAM stick, decreasing my RAM but just in case there's a problem with the old stick. 6. Ran Verifier.exe, found a 1e problem but don't know what to do with it since the BSOD didn't list a driver. So far no random lockups for 2 days, so I guess one or more of those I did worked. Last thing I wanted to do was update the BIOS, but that's something I'm not confident at doing lest I brick this thing.
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2012-04-30, 05:47 | Link #12 |
Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Philippines
Age: 47
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^
You will have to forget about updating the BIOS, unless one's a technician or someone who knows which update works best for the motherboard, as not all of them could improve the laptop's performance or functionality.
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2012-05-01, 22:18 | Link #13 |
blinded by blood
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Flashing a new BIOS or vBIOS is a joke with modern motherboards and video cards. You download a utility from the manufacturer, it pops up a window, you hit "do it" and it does it. No fuss, no muss, no booting off a floppy and typing in a bunch of manual commands.
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2012-05-04, 03:31 | Link #14 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
Age: 44
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Quote:
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Last edited by Tiberium Wolf; 2012-05-05 at 15:32. |
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