Hard drives are generally characterized by silent operation, although certain devices can make certain sounds when accessing data or turning it off – which is completely normal. Let’s see what to do when the hard drive is noisy.
On the other hand, if you start to hear occasional noises, or sounds never before made by the device be it vibrations, shocks, or screeches – your hard drive may be experiencing failures, in this case, you must be fixed the hard drive by clicking. The following steps will help you determine, if it really is a failure of your hard drive, and if it is, how to deal with the problem before suffering a data loss that you may regret.
What to do when a Hard Drive Makes Noise
The solution to this problem can take between 15 minutes and a few hours, always depending directly on the cause that has led the hard disk to emit the noise.
1- The first thing we should do is make sure that our hard drive is really the source of the noise and not another hardware component. See the bottom section of the article titled other noise emitted by Computers for more information on this.
For its part, it is always important to verify each possible scenario to reliably identify the source of the problem. If this noise disappears when removing the power cable but manifests itself again when connecting the data cable to the hard drive, then the data cable will most likely need to be replaced.
2- If you have the security that your hard drive is the one that has failures, run free software to diagnose hard drives, programs available by default on many computers or via the Internet. You can also come across different advanced diagnostic tools through third-party websites.
When running these diagnostic programs, it is advisable to close all other programs that may be running, as well as unplug devices or disks excluded from this diagnostic in order to avoid any type of confusion in the results.
3- If the corrections made by the diagnostic program do not temporarily solve the noise emitted by the hard disk, it is recommended to make a backup copy of the system and replace the hard disk immediately.
4- In case the diagnostic program helps to solve these noises, remember that it will be a temporary solution. The hard drive will most likely continue to experience crashes until it becomes obsolete.
The permanent solution is to create a complete backup or backup of the system and replace the hard drive as soon as possible.
However, on rare occasions when a hard drive makes noise when accessing certain data, this can be due to failures in specific sectors, which can be repaired using diagnostic software.
5- After this process, the hard disk should have eradicated the noises previously emitted.
More Help to Troubleshoot Hard Drive Noise
As there is no specific method to repair a defective hard drive, protecting our data through regular backups is without a doubt essential. By having a backup copy that is always up-to-date, recovering and restoring information when installing a new hard drive will always be easy.
The best method to safeguard our data is through an online backup service, since our files will be stored in the “cloud” and will be less susceptible to potential loss or damage. However, we can resort to a much faster method by employing a free backup program – some of these programs can even clone files from a faulty hard drive and add them to a new working drive.
Solid-state hard drives (SSDs) do not have moving parts as seen in traditional hard drives, so we will never hear failures similar to these.
But not only internal drives, but also external hard drives can produce noise. This kind of noise usually manifests itself when the disk is connected to the computer for the first time, an inconvenience related to power or data cables. You can try to solve these noises produced by external hard drives through a power adapter connected directly to the wall, making use of a shorter USB cable, using USB 2.0+ ports, or connecting the hard drive to a USB port of the rear section of the computer instead of the front ports. Also always make sure that your USB port is working properly.
A fragmented hard drive will create a greater demand for movement on its hardware components than a defragmented drive. You can use a free defragmentation program to help extend the life of your hard drive, although this probably won’t fix the noise issue.
That a hard disk emits noise implies that it is connected to a power source. However, you may be unable to start the operating system to access your files normally.
Although rare, the noise emitted by a hard drive may be related to a faulty device driver. See How to update device drivers in Windows for more information on this.
Other Noises Emitted by Computers
The hard drive is not the only component within a computer. We also have a power supply, a fan, an optical disc drive, and other elements that can also emit noise. It is always important to recognize the origin of each noise in such a way as to always aim at the correct solution to the problem.
When executing certain programs or windows on a computer, an increasingly loud noise may be evident a sound that we can often attribute to the hard disk. Most likely, there is a disc in the optical disc drive that is spinning faster than it used to, in such a way as to allow the computer to read its data, which is extremely normal.
Static noises coming from speakers can often be confused with sounds emitted by the hard disk (the cable may not be correctly inserted into the computer’s connector), as well as BIOS beep codes.
