After having moved, I set my computer up a couple of weeks later. I started doing some work on it for a bit and then turned it off to go to sleep. When I awoke I turned it on from sleep mode and it made a grinding, or squealing noise (not sure how to describe it). It failed to load my HDD, so I just turned it off, waited for a minute or two, then turned it back on and it would boot it up as if nothing were wrong. Even after a system turn off it woke up as if it were only sleeping. So the next night I decided to turn it off instead, and when I woke up, I turned it on as the previous day, and the same thing happened.
So I turned it off and turned it back on and it was fine again. It has done this for the past 4 mornings, so my problem may be common, but the interval at which it occurs-- every morning when i turn it on after about 6-8 hours of being off it does this. I’m not very tech savvy so I didn’t touch anything inside, but no files seem corrupted or anything. Apologies for the long story, but if anyone could shed some light on the situation, it would be greatly appreciated. Should I consider buying a replacement drive soon or could it just be a minor mishap that causes the hard drive to fail every morning?
You need to isolate the problem. I have seen DVD/CD drives do that. Here is what you want to do. Remove the side of the case, the one which you see when the front of the PC is to your right and the back of the PC is to your left. You’ll probably have to remove two screws. Do this only when the PC is powered off. Then go to sleep. When you awake, do not rouse the PC until you have a cup of coffee / tea. Listen for the sound to determine where the noise is coming from. If the noise is coming from inside the case from the direction of the hard drive, then that’s your problem. If the noise is coming from the front, it’s your DVD/CD drive.
From your description of the noise, it does not appear to be the power supply, but if the noise is coming from the rear of the case, the power supply might be getting weird. In my experience, power supplies are usually the first things to go and often fail intermittently.
Replacement of a power supply is easy, just a pain. Replacement of a DVD/CD drive is fairly easy. Replacement of a hard drive involves some work because you have to reinstall the OS on it. Hard drives do not “fail every morning.” Your PC has a problem that must be fixed.
