is my hard drive busted?

[GRT]

so my computer froze today, and i unplugged the power cord to restart it

afterwards it starts to freeze every so often; what happens is i hear some kind of clicking sound, and it sounds as if my hard drive stops spinning and then picks back up, but my computer's frozen

it started to happen every time i try to boot into windows, then i left it alone for a while and i could actually get into windows for a couple of minutes, but same thing happens and the computer freezes

time to get a new hard drive? or is there something else i need to check?

thx in advance

[Akucaen]

New hard drive time. Stop powering it up until you have a new drive, start copying the data after you have a new install of windows up. If it starts locking up or slowing down to zero, freeze the drive and try again.

[GRT]

figures, but what kinda threw me off on that idea was that i did a check disk on boot, and the computer froze right in the middle of it

not that i'm an expert by any stretch, but my logic was that the chkdsk process is done while the computer is not booted through the hdd, and that since the computer froze anyway, it might have been something else

[Akucaen]

chkdsk still loads from the disk (it's not a bios function) and then reads the disk intensively.

[Deadgye]

so my computer froze today, and i unplugged the power cord to restart it

.... <.<; Personally, I'd recommend you stop doing that.

[GRT]

i know that's bad... but what else can you do when everything just freezes up?

[Eliseos]

Hold the power button until the computer powers down.

[GRT]

it wasn't working tho

[Balthasar]

not that i'm an expert by any stretch, but my logic was that the chkdsk process is done while the computer is not booted through the hdd, and that since the computer froze anyway, it might have been something else

if it's making a noise like that, there's likely a problem with the heads inside the drive. That means it's hardware issue, so it will give you problems whether the computer is booted or not.

[GRT]

well this is interesting, i left it off overnight and this morning it has stopped freezing... at least hasn't so far through 3 hours

still gonna backup everything and look into a new hard drive tho to be safe

thanks guys

[Shenrien]

There is normally a switch on the power supply that allows juice to flow or not you could have done it that way..

[Cheerios]

well this is interesting, i left it off overnight and this morning it has stopped freezing... at least hasn't so far through 3 hours

still gonna backup everything and look into a new hard drive tho to be safe

thanks guys

As you should! It's a pretty common hard drive failure that is coined "the click of death". A hard drive might still be usable for awhile, but everything comes to a halt when it clicks. It can either click for a few seconds, or until you power down (that's how my old hard drive was like).

Here's a video demonstration of the issue you're having. The end of the video shows the drive powered on. Other related videos on the side show the same things as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbq8vfs1wYY

[GRT]

so like, i was trying to get rid of that busted SATA HDD today and install windows on an old IDE backup drive... and after i unplugged it, and tried to boot up using a windows xp install disc, everything's gone to hell

my bios isn't detecting any of my drives, not my IDE, nor my CDROM, not even that old SATA HDD that i tried to plug back in

the thing is this happened to me before, and i fixed it that time, but i forgot how lol

anybody got any tips? i have my IDE drive and CDROM on the same data cable that connects to the motherboard... i gonna try to get a floppy drive from another old computer hooked up and try to flash the BIOS tomorrow, maybe that'll help

[sruon]

You most likely fucked the master/slave shit.

Switch the jumper on either of them until it works or use them on different IDE channel if you have more than 1 (unlikely on newer MBs.)

[GRT]

yes you were right, switched both to "cable select" and they are working

but now when i'm trying to install windows, computer shuts itself down... and it says "previous shutdown due to thermal event" when i turn it back up

lol

gonna pick up some thermal paste after work... maybe it's not my hard drive after all

[Olo401]

Yea that's definitely something up with the cooling.. could be as simple as a loose heatsink pin.