WD360GD-00FNA0 Clock-like ticking

This sata drive, now several years old, had started ticking constantly. Sysinternal’s Diskmon showed "irp_mj read/write " constantly.

It was still accessible to Win 7 Home and WD Life Guard diagnosed “Error Free”.

I considered backing up the partition and reformating, but decided to swap it into another computer with near-identical motherboard, as a non-booting drive.

On start up, Windows 7 on that computer auto-found and installed new drivers, even though its boot drive was also a Sata,

WD3000BLFS-01YBU1. I had access to the WD360GD without problem.

I then swapped it back to the original computer and the incessant ticking is gone!

Did the “Drive Installation” on the alternate computer make a change to the WD360GD firmware? I have no idea, but it now works on the home computer without ticking. Can WD Techs explain?

Maybe this will be of help to others with a “ticking” problem.

Robert M. Keesling

The only way to be sure is by running a test. Check the link below.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/940/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzODkyMDQyMC9zaWQveWM2V2VXWms%3D

The clicking sound is the arm inside the HD getting stuck. It’s possible that simply moving the HD around freed it. Some people find that running a HD on its side or standing it up can work around the problem. (Some people have tried dropping a HD to free the arm.) But I would keep an eye (or in this case, an ear) on the problem. If it reoccurs, you will want to copy the data from the drive as quickly as possible and replace it.