Black WD1001FALS clicking sound

Hi, I have a brand new Black WD1001FALS drive running in a Windows 7 machine.  The disk is a secondary drive.  I’ve noticed that when the drive is idle it makes a short double click sound every 5-6 seconds. 

I’ve seen a similar issue reported on the forum so I’ve tried the advice of removing the data cable and powering up the drive with just power, this stops the clicking, until the data cable is reattached.  I tried four different SATA cables and the clicking remains, and different SATA ports on the motherboard.  Also triple checked the bios settings.   

This doesn’t sound normal to me, but maybe it is.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Same drive, same OS, same problem. In Windows all SMART tests pass, however the drive also has a Linux partition which reported a few “current pending sector” errors while doing some disk-intensive operations (imaging a laptop drive). I’ll be watching it closely.

hi,

have your try others os? or head going to dead?

Hi jtombs,

that’s interesting to hear.  

I also posted on the overclockers forum, here’s the link. 

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18096487

@ Solution, no only tried on Win7 so far.

Regards,

foxes.

Try updating your BIOS, resetting it to factory defaults, and disabling any power management settings within it. If your motherboard has more than one SATA controller, then try using the other controller.

Update to my previous post: while web browsing in Linux, Firefox suddenly froze and Linux died with a fatal filesystem error. I was unable to recover the LVM partitions; fortunately this was a “play” environment. The NTFS partition was still good but after this point the short and long SMART selftests both failed with a read error. So that drive, 2 months old, is on its way back to WD. 

It gets worse… I carefully installed and checked out the RMA advance replacement and all was well, then a couple of days ago my wife reported that Windows 7 wouldn’t boot. Drive light on continuously, screen frozen at the fuzzy Windows logo. (The new drive is D: and the boot drive is C: ) Now this drive, in service for 3 days, also began to fail both SMART selftests with read errors. A side trip to safe mode allowed Windows to boot and run, but it logged an error on every boot “The default transaction resource manager on volume D: encountered a non-retryable error and could not start.” Chkdsk seems to have fixed that and as of now the drive seems to be working while I decide whether to cough up shipping for a second RMA.

HP p6110f with Windows 7 64-bit, WD1001FALS.

It’s still clicking, BTW.

I’m getting this same clicking with my 1TB Blacks - every 3 seconds for a period of about a minute or two, then stops, then restarts after another maybe 5 mins while for another ‘cycle’.

To describe the noise it’s on a cycle of a fairly fast double click (‘ba dunk’) - 3 seconds - single click (lower pitch ‘chunk’).  I’ve watched videos of people with their failing HDD sounds, and doesn’t sound like those, and not nearly as loud - maybe slightly quieter than the normal operating noises. 

I actually have several units, and it seems all of them are doing the same thing, tried different SATA cables as well.  Also to note: when I have more than one Black running, the noise cycle does not overlap, ever. 

Running Windows 7 64-bit, installed on a separate OS SSD on an ASUS P6T SE, brand new machine.

HDTune checks out ok for the Blacks and SSD, however WD Data Lifeguard gives ‘Cable Test failure’ on all drives (including the SSD).

CrystalDiskInfo gives Good for the Blacks and Good 100% for the SSD.  As suggested by someone in the thread, I tried setting the Automatic Acoustic Management to 80h for the Blacks (quietest setting at 80h, which is Recommended Value), and the noise (edit: does not stop). 

Anyone else have insight?  OP have any luck?

My second replacement WD1001FALS clicks just like the two that came before it, with a sound similar to what you describe. But after almost 2 months of use it still passes the SMART tests and no SMART errors have been logged, so I think the clicking must be normal. I also get “Cable test failure” with the WD utility.

So my only suggestion would be to run SmartMonTools periodically to check for “real” failures.

To follow up, I did some more ‘testing’ - I decided to transfer some files from my old computer by hooking up my old SATA drives (a 7200.10 and a 320GB Black), these were connected by the same SATA cable+power that was going to one of my WD1001FALS 1TB.

For both drives, I left them connected for 1hr+, both transferring files (50GB+) and idle.  Neither had the clicking noise the WD1001FALS have.

jtombs - I’ve run Smartmontools, but while the -H Heatlh Status check gives good health to all my drives, I cannot run the short or long self tests on the SSD or the WD1001FALS:

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===

Sending command: “Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in offline mode”.

Command “Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode” failed: Function not implemented.

The -c Attributes show:

Offline data collection status: (0x84) Offline data collection activity was suspended by an interrupting command from host.  Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.

Try testing the the drive using the DOS version of the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics utility. The Windows version will show false failures in Windows 7. A new Windows 7 compatible version should be released in the near future.

Do you still have the clicking sound when only power is connected to the drive (no data cable)? If not, then either your controller or OS/driver may be sending a head park command. Try the drive on a different controller or system to see if this is a controller issue (if available).

Are you running smartctl as administrator? Here’s my current disk info:

C:\Program Files (x86)\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -ax /dev/hdb
smartctl 5.39 2009-11-30 r2990 [i686-pc-mingw32-win7(64)] (cf-win32-20091130)
Copyright (C) 2002-9 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Black family
Device Model:     WDC WD1001FALS-00E3A0
Serial Number:    WD-WCATR0036777
Firmware Version: 05.01D05
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Sun Mar 28 18:29:43 2010 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
                  Enabled status cached by OS, trying SMART RETURN STATUS cmd.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                                        was completed without error.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                 (16500) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        ( 191) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   177   176   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4141
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       148
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       400
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       146
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       8
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       139
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   109   106   000    Old_age   Always       -       38
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

General Purpose Logging (GPL) feature set supported
General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART           Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
GP/S  Log at address 0x00 has    1 sectors [Log Directory]
SMART Log at address 0x01 has    1 sectors [Summary SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x02 has    5 sectors [Comprehensive SMART error log]
GP    Log at address 0x03 has    6 sectors [Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x06 has    1 sectors [SMART self-test log]
GP    Log at address 0x07 has    1 sectors [Extended self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x09 has    1 sectors [Selective self-test log]
GP    Log at address 0x10 has    1 sectors [NCQ Command Error]
GP    Log at address 0x11 has    1 sectors [SATA Phy Event Counters]
SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (6 sectors)
No Errors Logged

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       400         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       186         -
# 3  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%         4         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         2         -

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       400         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       186         -
# 3  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%         4         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         2         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version:                  2
SCT Version (vendor specific):       258 (0x0102)
SCT Support Level:                   1
Device State:                        Active (0)
Current Temperature:                    38 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature:     37/40 Celsius
Lifetime    Min/Max Temperature:      ?/41 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count:   0/0
SCT Temperature History Version:     2
Temperature Sampling Period:         1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval:        1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature:      0/60 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit:           -41/85 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index):    478 (48)

Index    Estimated Time   Temperature Celsius
  49    2010-03-28 10:32    40  *********************
  50    2010-03-28 10:33    40 *********************
  51    2010-03-28 10:34    40  *********************
  52    2010-03-28 10:35    39 ********************
 …    …( 14 skipped).    …  ********************
  67    2010-03-28 10:50    39 ********************
  68    2010-03-28 10:51    38  *******************
 …    …(457 skipped).    … *******************
  48    2010-03-28 18:29    38  *******************

SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID      Size     Value  Description
0x0001  2            0  Command failed due to ICRC error
0x0002  2            0  R_ERR response for data FIS
0x0003  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0005  2            0  R_ERR response for non-data FIS
0x0006  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x000a  2            1  Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x000b  2            0  CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x8000  4        38327  Vendor specific

Running as Admin got the Smartmontools’ tests to work:

This is for one of my current Blacks:

C:\Windows\system32>smartctl -ax /dev/hda
smartctl 5.39.1 2010-01-28 r3054 [i686-pc-mingw32-win7(64)] (sf-win32-5.39.1-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Black family
Device Model: WDC WD1001FALS-00E8B0
Serial Number: WD-WMATV4599681
Firmware Version: 05.00K05
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Sun Mar 28 16:43:02 2010 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
                  Enabled status cached by OS, trying SMART RETURN STATUS cmd.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command
 from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed

                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (18000) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off supp
ort.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 208) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_
FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always -
       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 253 253 021 Pre-fail Always -
       4891
  4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -
       19
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always -
       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 100 253 000 Old_age Always -
       0
  9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -
       22
 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always -
       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always -
       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -
       14
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
       12
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
       6
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 118 115 000 Old_age Always -
       32
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline -
       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline -
       0

General Purpose Logging (GPL) feature set supported
General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
GP/S Log at address 0x00 has 1 sectors [Log Directory]
SMART Log at address 0x01 has 1 sectors [Summary SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x02 has 5 sectors [Comprehensive SMART error log]
GP Log at address 0x03 has 6 sectors [Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x06 has 1 sectors [SMART self-test log]
GP Log at address 0x07 has 1 sectors [Extended self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x09 has 1 sectors [Selective self-test log]
GP Log at address 0x10 has 1 sectors [NCQ Command Error]
GP Log at address 0x11 has 1 sectors [SATA Phy Event Counters]
GP/S Log at address 0x80 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x81 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x82 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x83 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x84 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x85 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x86 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x87 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x88 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x89 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8a has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8b has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8c has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8d has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8e has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x8f has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x90 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x91 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x92 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x93 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x94 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x95 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x96 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x97 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x98 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x99 has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9a has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9b has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9c has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9d has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9e has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0x9f has 16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa0 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa1 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa2 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa3 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa4 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa5 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa6 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa7 has 16 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa8 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xa9 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xaa has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xab has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xac has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xad has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xae has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xaf has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb0 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb1 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb2 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb3 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb4 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb5 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP Log at address 0xb6 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xb7 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xc0 has 1 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP Log at address 0xc1 has 24 sectors [Device vendor specific log]
GP/S Log at address 0xe0 has 1 sectors [SCT Command/Status]
GP/S Log at address 0xe1 has 1 sectors [SCT Data Transfer]

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (6 sectors)
No Errors Logged

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA
_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 21 -

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA
_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 21 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1 0 0 Not_testing
    2 0 0 Not_testing
    3 0 0 Not_testing
    4 0 0 Not_testing
    5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version: 2
SCT Version (vendor specific): 258 (0x0102)
SCT Support Level: 1
Device State: SMART Off-line Data Collection executing in
 background (4)
Current Temperature: 32 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature: 24/32 Celsius
Lifetime Min/Max Temperature: 32/33 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count: 0/0
SCT Temperature History Version: 2
Temperature Sampling Period: 1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval: 1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature: 0/60 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit: -41/85 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index): 128 (72)

Index Estimated Time Temperature Celsius
  73 2010-03-28 14:36 32 *************
 ... ..(126 skipped). .. *************
  72 2010-03-28 16:43 32 *************

SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID Size Value Description
0x0001 2 0 Command failed due to ICRC error
0x0002 2 0 R_ERR response for data FIS
0x0003 2 0 R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0005 2 0 R_ERR response for non-data FIS
0x0006 2 0 R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x000a 2 26 Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x8000 4 67202 Vendor specific


C:\Windows\system32>

Looks good.