OS X :: Noticed Unusually Loud Clicking Noises From The Hard Drive - HD Fails?
Dec 1, 2009
I have a Unibody Macbook, and recently it has been very slow. But not with processes as much has hard drive related actions such as playing back saved video, loading files in the finder, especially applications, and its been temporarily freezing lately for like 10 seconds. I have also noticed unusually loud clicking noises from the hard drive, which i am pretty sure screams imminent hard drive failure. Do this sound , does 4 gigs of ram make a noticeable difference over 2?
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Feb 15, 2009
Ok, i have a MacBook Pro, running OS 10.5.6, i have all the updates complete. My WD mybook is a 500G,.. the one with the blue circle button in the font [on/off button and blue ring light] you can see it at:
URL
this is my issue: Few days ago it just stopped mounting, I had to force reboot my computer and it hasnt come up sense.
Odd things: Disk Utilities reads that there is a drive connected, but wont mount nor give the options to mount and says that the total capacity=0 bytes [when connected by Firewire 400] when i connect it with USB2 to USB [the square USB to regular USB] it comes up the same but with total capacity = 2TB
STARTING UP: when the WD started up, or powers on, it turns on, the light goes around the ring as usual then it dims down and slowly illuminates the entire ring up and just stays all lit.
NOISES: It makes these odd [sort of soft] clicking noises when starting up,.. not sure if its done that all the time or if it just started,..
COMPUTER START UP: i have tried having it start up by powering everything down [computer and WD] and starting up the computer so the computer starts up the WD, which it does, but then it locks up my computer,..
Disk Utilities [DU]: shows the nice little yellow external WD drive icon on the left panel with the name WD [NOTE: it does not show the double icon, WD and then a sub icon with the drive name] and it wont eject the WD icon, even if the drive is no longer connected, it locks up DU and then if i try to force quit it locks up the mac.
It does give me the option to Partition/Erase and all the rest, but this is my main drive and i am a video editor,.. sort of NEED the files on the drive,.. so i am not all about erasing my data and loosing all my work.
NOTE: the Drive was never formatted, i know i was stupid not to do that,.. but we can move on from that, its in that FAT format, never partitioned or anything.
I have tried hooking it up to a PC running vista, it installed all the "New Software bs" and then never mounted or anything,.. [that was only with the USB, my pc doesnt have a firewire connection]
I have two newer WD 500G drives as well [the ones with the white bar light in the front] and they both come up fine. but if i try to link them up through the older one nothing happens [they dont mount]
what can i do to get the data off the drive? can i reformat the drive and still recover the data? If i throw it at the wall and bust it up,.. is the data still good?Was that too much details?
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Sep 26, 2010
I am so upset right now, this is my 2nd macbook with this problem. I just got this macbook yesterday and the hard drive is making a clicking noise, but it isn't a click....click...click... like a lot of people have had, it's actually more of a quick series of clicks every few seconds, almost like the hard drive is shaking. It goes away for a bit when I am typing, like right now, but after I stop it comes right back.
Also the fan is pretty loud, considering I haven't put anything on the computer yet.. I've already been to the genius bar and all they did was give me a new, worse macbook, so there is no way I'm going back. Are there any fixes for a noisy hard drive aside from voiding my warranty and putting my own in? If it is normal, I might just invest in a good pair on noise cancelling head phones... Thanks!
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Aug 23, 2009
I just bought my MacBook Pro last week. When I power it up, it makes a loud noise for about a second and a half. I think it's the hard drive starting up or the disc drive. I'm not sure which one, but it's pretty loud, so I was just wondering if anyone else noticed this and if it is normal.
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Jun 19, 2012
In the 6 years I've had this Mac Pro 1,1 I've never heard the fans this loud. I'm running 10.7.4 and have a FCP Compressor job running, which I've done quite often, but it's never caused the fans to be audible. It's to the point where It's really distracting. I regularly run high CPU activities on this machine (graphic renders, video transcoding, etc..) and have never heard the fans or gotten the speed to go beyond 650rpm (checking on the iStat Pro widget). The temps on the machine are 83 and 85 f on both CPUs (i've also noticed the temps are displayed differently after 10.7.4 update was done). But for some reason, the exhaust and CPU fans are running at full output (2800 rpm each).
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 12g Ram
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Sep 15, 2010
So I got my macbook pro yesterday and I've been doing some basic stuff on it. While I was installing World of Warcraft, the computer jumped up about 101 degrees celcius. I know I shouldn't trust istat pro 100% but still, my fans are running super loud and the computer is very hot to touch. I'm not running any heavy programs or doing any gaming. I had Aol Instant Messenger on, and WoW instaling in the background. I'd like to also add that when opening various programs I get the spinning beachball very often.
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Nov 22, 2006
My PM G5's Hard Drive has been making wierd noises lately and I'm really beginning to worry that it's failing. How can I be sure?
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Nov 15, 2009
My friend's Macbook Pro (2006, 1.83ghz, upgraded to 2gb ram) has been making ridiculously loud fan noises. We found it was coming from the right fan, sounds like something is scraping - almost a tractor engine-type sound. I have a newer Macbook Pro and I installed fan control 1.2 on both of our macs to compare. It turns out on hers, the LEFT fan is running at 0rpm and the RIGHT fan (the noisy one) is running at fairly average speeds (compared to mine, which is quiet - between 1500 and 3500rpm). The temperature seems to be on par with mine (about 115-140 degrees F). We did a PMU reset, which didn't change anything. Do I need to replace BOTH fans? I have researched it, and it seems like I could replace them if I had to.
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Sep 9, 2009
I just bought a 750GB Western Digital My Book external hard drive to use for Time Machine backups and other storage.
The problem is, when my Macbook is writing to the drive it sometimes makes a weird scratching noise. Is it okay for a hard drive to make noises when it is writing data?
Also, when the hard drive is plugged in to my laptop, even when inactive, the two lights on the front flash. Does this indicate that something is wrong?
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Jul 23, 2009
A year ago next month I bought the best iMac on the market at the time, as souped up as it could possibly be. I have not had any problems with it until now. Last night, my computer began suffering an incredibly strange problem with the internal speakers (I don't own any external ones). It all began when I opened GarageBand: noise was suddenly 10x louder, I tried to turn the volume down and the clicks that usually sound off when I work the volume were not only louder, but different clicks. The only way I could stop the jarringly loud noises was to mute the computer entirely. When I exited out of GarageBand, everything returned to normal.
I thought that was the end of the problem until today. I was on Youtube watching a music video, and in the midst of changing my status on Yahoo messenger, I heard another extremely loud click noises. These clicks don't sound like they're coming from some kind of malfunction in the computer. They sound like the computer actually means to make this sound, like it's stored in the computer's library of sounds. That went away, but the volume was again messed up. It was way too loud and in between turning it down, the volume suddenly disappeared altogether! Without being muted, my computer was not making any noise, although the music video should have still been playing. Only time seemed to solve the problem, as the sound later returned (I exited messenger and re-opened it as I had exited GarageBand--but I wasn't sure if this is what caused the sound to return).
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Dec 5, 2010
when I tap the touchpad to click on something, it makes the sound that I am actually pressing on the touchpad to click.
When I inspect the touchpad, I don't noticed any loose gaps or the glass is moving anywhere from side to side or top to bottom.
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Mar 25, 2012
my 2011 Mac Mini that I bought back in January is making some strange noises occasionally. High-pitched screeching noises with some clicking. It sounds like it should be the hard drive sounds of doom, but what's odd is that I check the drive using SMARTreporter occasionally, and nothing really changes as far as error statistics, and the drive otherwise works fine. So I'm paranoid, just because I wonder – is it potentially not the hard drive and actually something else entirely? Is this even possible?
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Bought in January 2012
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Dec 16, 2006
So, recently (as of thursday or so) my PBG4 has been making weird buzzing noises, usually only when it was working hard (or watching things online). Eventually, as it got closer to the weekend, the noise started to get louder whenever it would come on, so I'd just turn off my computer for an hour or so and let it cool. Finally, today, I turn it off again and now whenever I turn it back on, all I get is the gray start up screen, sans spinner. Sometimes I even get a little folder with the mac face on it. What's wrong?
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Jul 12, 2006
I have a Rev A 12 inch Powerbook - 867 mHz, 640 RAM, 40 GB hard drive. The machine's always been reliable and has performed great over the years. I bought it the last week of July, 2003.
Yesterday, the Pbook was shut down, and I press the on button so it would boot up. Almost immediately, the hard drive makes a loud, whirring noise. The computer advances to the gray screen with the Apple logo, but it doesn't get past that point and the noise continues, as if it's a car engine that just won't start...
I'm going to take it to my local Apple Store in the morning, and hopefully the data, including my nearly 22 GB of music, can be saved. Any thoughts on how to get my computer working again? By the way, it's the original hard drive installed. Hopefully this is enough info to generate some ideas, I'm stumped.
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Jun 14, 2012
Today at school i was picking up my computer and i tilted it and it made a weird noise. My friends say it might be the hard drive. should i open the computer myself and check it out? take it in to the apple store?
Also, i accidentally dropped it on the lower right hand corner and it made a small dent on the corner of the screen and the base of the laptop.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Oct 5, 2007
So I've got my mothers aluminium 12" Powerbook here because there were some troubles with it, it was freezing, made strange clicking noises on the left side (like 20 times every time she tried to restart) and eventually wouldn't start up anymore. So I guess there must be something wrong with the harddrive .
What is the best strategy to try to save as much data as possible? I have the original OS X 10.3.4 installation disks, I have an external hard drive to write the users data folder to. Do I just slide in the install disk while starting up (I mean I can't slide in the disk while it's off can I?) and will I be able to attach the external drive in order to copy the files?
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Feb 19, 2010
I have a Dual 1.8 G5 and my hard drive has started to make a clicking sound every now and then. I believe it may be on the verge of dying anyday. Since i have space to put in another internal hard drive i am planning to get a WD Black Caviar 1TB and put it in.
Now my question is how do i move all my application from the old internal drive to the new internal drive.From what i have researched it seems that using a enclosure is the way to go but all the info i have seen is referring to replacing the drive rather adding a new one.I would like to move everything to the new drive and make that a master.What is the best way to perform this task?
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Apr 14, 2010
For lucky 15" i5/i7 owners: how silent are they? Does the fan come on at all? If so, after how much load? Any other noises? Hard drive?
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Dec 5, 2014
My 100G space came up as full last night so I freed up about 15g. space, but now today I notice it is going way slow, taking forever to open or show data in files - eg if I click on the master application folder - the names of indiv. folders show but file content on right doesn't come up until about 30 secs, and the computer itself is making all sorts of whirring/clicking type sounds which i called "thinking" but it's as if the memory is still full and is operating at half it's speed.
I have a 2.16 GHz intel core duo processor, and memory is 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.
Get info shows: Capacity of 99.69GB, avail is 14.11 GB
Any tips on what has happened since last night to today? I thought it would be running faster and accessing files really easily.
I just got a pop up saying: Your iDisk is unavailable. Make sure you are logged in to your MObile ME acct, then try again to access your iDisk.
COuld this be the problem? I've never seen this before. What is my iDisk, and what does it do?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Jul 17, 2009
A while back I was running low on hard disk space so decided to upgrade my hard drive. Went ahead and upgraded to 320Gb. Then after some time, I noticed that the hard drive was making a large spinning noise so I thought it was a bad drive and RMA'd it. I just recently got the new drive and installed it and the drive was making that same loud spinning noise. Now I'm frustrated with this and want to get to the end of it. I'm thinking it might be the rubbers are out of place that holds the drive.
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Dec 17, 2009
I looked through some of the threads that reported problems with the new iMacs, and they seem to go back to about mid-October/late-October, and here it is, the third week in December, and there isn't an "official" peep from Apple about any of them?My I7 iMac is supposed to ship on 24 December, which will make it what, a Week 51 unit? I'm expecting the entire catastrophe...cracked glass, flickering, yellow fever, and a loud hard drive.
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Jun 23, 2012
Compter was frozen on the desktop screen making clicking noises (hard drive?), had to unplug to restart. Now won't boot past grey screen with flashing question mark and still makes clicking noises occasionally. Holding option key doesn't let me select volume to boot from... inserting startup disk for Leopard doesn't work, have reset PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware and have tried to access single user mode without any luck... what are my options? I am more concerned with recovering my data from my hard drive than saving my aging computer.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
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Dec 19, 2007
My Maxtor 500 external hard drive has suddenly stopped appearing on my desktop. My other external drives appear. I've tried hooking the drive to my MacBook Pro with the same results. The drive however, seems 'active'. The light on the front of the drive does its usual flashing routine when plugged into a new machine. I've never had a crashed drive before. Does it sound like this is what has happened, or does anyone have a clue as to what I should do?
Information:
G5
Mac OS X (10.5.1)
MacBook Pro
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Sep 5, 2009
I just upgraded my MacBooks hard drive and put in the install cd to restore from my time machine backup. Evedything went smoothly until I chose the new hard drive as the destination for the restore. I was told that the install failed to erase the hard drive and to restart and try again. So I did but when I try to erase or partition the drive, there is an error and it fails. The hard drve seems fine since it can be seen by disc utility but after it fails to partition or erase, it disappears from the disc utility forcing me to restart. The process I've done about 5 times now is boot the comp, choose time machine restore, then while the install is calculating the space the restore would require and searching for discs to install on, nothing shows up so I go to disc utility and try to erase or partition the drive only for it to fail and disappear from disc utility. At this point I hold down the power button to turn it off and restart the process.
The first time I tried, the restore process saw the drive while calculating the restores size requirements and allowed me to go the next step where it would automatically try to erase the hard drive (without me having to go into disc utility myself) but after the first try, it just says "searching for disks" and so I go into disc utility myself where I can see the disk.
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Dec 3, 2007
This morning the hard drive on my G5 sounded like it was at 8000 rpm's and there was a message on my screen to shut down the computer using the power button. I did this. Now anytime I try to power back up, I get the white screen with the apple and the "booting" icon, which then goes to a blue screen with the same icon, which then is just the blue screen with my mouse icon floating around. Also, on the random occasion, after booting to the blue screen it takes me to a DOS looking screen that asks for my login and password, of which I have neither.
Information:
Power Mac G5
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Sep 15, 2008
every once and a while, when I am working on my MBA, i get a loud "ticking noise" in the upper right of my keyboard.It sounds like the harddrive is trying to think or something, but it only happens for about 5 seconds and it occurs even at idle if i dont do anything that requires the computer to use memory or access the cache, etc...
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May 9, 2009
I notice that while streaming a movie, watching a dvd or playing a game my hard drive fan is so loud, its annoying. I have a 2008 White Macbook and i replaced the stock hard drive with a western digital 5400rpm 320gb and I only have 1gig of ram. I have no problem replacing the hard drive for a 7200 but i just need to know if its worth it. If i were to upgrade the ram to 2gigs would that solve the problem? Is it possible to install a 500gig drive into the white macbooks?
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Aug 30, 2010
I just bought a brand new MacBook Pro about 2 weeks ago. I'd say about a week ago I notice a clicking noise when I pick up the macbook or move it at all coming from the hard drive.
I finally took to the internet to find out what was going on, and got mixed results. Some said that it was normal for a Macbook Pro and that it was securing the hard drive so it didn't break while I moved it, and a vast majority said that the hard drive's failure was imminent. So what is it?
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Jan 25, 2009
Only started recently but my hard drive sometimes starts clicking when being used thoroughly(like when extracting archives) and then it will make one loud click(sounds like when my pc hard drives go to sleep) and the computer has to be restarted. Should I take into the local apple store or see if it gets worse?
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Jun 20, 2009
I recently purchased a new MBP 15, 3 Ghz, 500 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, build-to-order. The hard drive appears to be a seagate ST9500420ASG. I am experiencing a strange hard drive click followed 80% of the time by a beep. It is definitely not a beep from the speaker. Additionally, it happens at any time, even when the computer is sitting on a perfectly still table. It is exactly the same sound as what is documented at [URL] and mine too appears randomly approximately 15-20 times per day. It does not appear to matter if the computer is under light or heavy use and it seems truly random when it occurs.
Another user on youtube has also experienced this with their new MBP 15 and sent me a wav file with the same sound mine is making. So far, his experience is that it does not occur under bootcamp. This leads me to believe that it is something specific to OSX. Turning off the "put hard drive to sleep when possible" does not seem to make any difference. I have not personally tested bootcamp on my machine to confirm that mine is the same, but the original poster of the youtube video linked above also seems to think it is OSX specific.
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