Harddrive Whine - Diagnostic Reliable?

Hi folks,

I have a Seagate ST320420A Barracuda ATA II 20420 which, in the last 2 weeks, has started making an annoyingly loud, intermittent, whine. I'm sure it's the HD, with the case open and pc running you can tell the sound is coming directly from it.

I have downloaded and ran Seagate's diagnostic software, and the drive checks out fine (with both the quick test and the extensive in-depth test). How reliable is the diagnostic? IS the drive going bad?

Thanks for your help,
She's

 

have you enabled s.m.a.r.t in the bios with the segate i had it popped up a warning,although the comp. was running perfectly.
i ran the diognostic it only just started running it stopped and i received an rma instructions from seagate,so iwould say it works

 

Simple one here. Take a long screwdriver, press the tip anywhere convenient against the hard drive and push the your ear against the handle end effectively closing it. Close you other ear with your finger. If the noise emanates from the hard drive it should be clear as a bell. From somewhere else it will still be audible through the screwdriver but will have a much more muffled and distant quality. It works on car engines too, (if you're careful).

 

"How reliable is the diagnostic? IS the drive going bad?" Diagnostics don't find everything. Sometimes they report drives being good that you kbow are bad. On the other hand I have had noisy hard drives that ran fine. I suggest making a good backup just in case.

 

Thanks guys,

Dai I have not enabled SMART thru the BIOS. I'll do that. Thanks.

AlbertB, that sounds like a great idea. Thanks.

Lurker, thanks. I have already backed up everything. I will probably buy a new drive because I run critical data on my PC and cannot aford to lose it if the drive decides to fail.

 

Bad bearings, it's only a matter of time before it goes belly-up. I've had them run for several years doing that, and also had them fail within a few weeks.

 

Thanks Johnwill. I appreciate the info. I'm replacing this one, just in case.