I have an WD EasyStore 8TB drive that I bought in ~2017/2018 and recently it started making an insane amount of noise ALL THE TIME. I thought, maybe it’s on an overzealous defrag routine, so I checked windows, but nothing of the sort was occurring. The drive wasn’t fragmented at all, and even at 0% disk I/O, the noise is loud and unbearable. Sounds like an old rusty weedwhacker motor, or a old-timey typewriter. See attached audio file. Is this thing dying, or have a loose component inside?https://www.mediafire.com/file/2w1dha3agfitruw/WDredNoise.wav/file
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Normally, the computer storage drives are quiet and steady, but in case of any physical damages or logical corruption, they can begin to make noise. There are numbers of different hard drive sounds for different reasons.
Most of the times there are 4 probable causes for clicking noise of a hard drive:
- The insufficient power supply is a very common cause of noise in the hard drive. It mostly happens when you have connected multiple devices (including the HDD) to a single port.
- Physical depreciation of the hard drive which results from either simple issues or damage such as a physical shock or trauma.
- A hard drive may be failed due to the faulty data cables, or incorrect drivers installed.
- A crashed hard drive.
If there is a noise, then you can try the subsequent fixes which people have used to overcome the issue:
- Check whether the hard drive is getting enough power or not. You can do it by plugging the power adapter directly into the power supply.
- Replace the data cable with the new one and turn on the drive. Now, if it does not make any noise, then the data cable might be faulty.
- In case the drive still makes noises, then there is a high possibility the drive is failing and needs to be replaced.
There are chances that your hard drive might be failing, mainly HDD failure happen due to the bad power supply, virus attack, damaged block, sectors and corrupted operating system. Further, I suggest you to check out the below blog that explains all the measures to check the health of any hard disk:
Hope it will help.
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- Safely turn off the power
To stop additional head movement, unplug external disks without ejecting.
For internal drives, utilize the operating system to shut them down (avoid force restarts, which can do additional damage). - Cut off all communication
If external, remove from the enclosure to save needless power cycles. - Unplug USB and SATA cables to fix any electrical problems.
Although this approach is controversial in tech circles, several people have found success with it:
Put in an anti-static bag, freeze for two hours, warm up for fifteen minutes, and then try a quick data transfer.
