New Hard Drive beeping and clicking at me : (

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So I looked around for a bit.. but didn't get any results for my problem.

I recently bought an external hard drive kit and was going to put in a relatively new maxtor hard drive that I have probably only used for a compiled 100 hours or so.

It ends up not working and then now I can't have the hard drive plugged in at all (whether or not its in the external case or hooked up directly to my computer) and won't let the computer boot when it is plugged in.

On top of this, it's making the strangest noises I've ever heard from a hard drive. It sort of goes beep click, beep click, beep click, over and over and won't let the computer go past the motherboard logo!!

Help : (
 
Though it does not sound good, you could try running the powermax utility you can get off the Maxtor site. That will diagnose the drive. You may have to install the drive as a slave to be able to do this. May have problems if it is external.

I recently worked on a neighbor's drive that sounded similar - it would lock my sytem up if I put it in in an enclosure. But when I installed it as a slave, I was able to run the utility on it.
 
Hm recently my external has gotten weird noises too. It starts off by making the a "drilling" and clicking noise; however after a while it stops. It only does this when i start it up for the first 30 seconds or so. And if i turn it off for a couple of mins and turn it back on it doesnt do the noises. It seems to only be doing them after I let it cool for a couple of hours. I have yet to diagnose whether its the fan or the HDD; however should I be alarmed and start backing up files?

Its only been powered on less then 50 hours... There doesnt seem to be any corrupted files... Its still under warranty should I consider replacing it?
 
do a diagnostic first before sending it for an RMA or sorts.. hdd faliure is always a common problem so a regular backup is a wise choice..
 
It ends up not working and then now I can't have the hard drive plugged in at all (whether or not its in the external case or hooked up directly to my computer) and won't let the computer boot when it is plugged in.
taejinah make sure in your bios you set first boot device to hdd, and your widows hdd is set to master
and all other cds,dvds,hdds are slave or cable select.
this external hdd should not prevent your pc from boot then
 
this external hdd should not prevent your pc from boot then
it would if the BIOS has set "allow booting from another source/allow boot from usb etc" option turned on..

shawn, how did your problem go?
 
not to be rude or go against your judgement (yes i did understand what you wrote) but its all mobo/bios dependent. My rig here, running an Asrock P4 Combo mobo will, no matter what boot order i set to (in my case hdd, cd, dvd) always try too boot my sandisk usb drive (or whatever flash card is in the reader) if i accidently leave it on the hub while booting and while i have that option on (boot from other sources thing)..
other boards may behave differently..

but like i said.. its all dependant on the Bios running it and how the actual motherboard handles things..

just covering all bases here... :)
 
Okay I'm back..., and once again asking questions... Well i took it out and put it into comp it runs fine, no noise, then turned on the external w/o hd in it and yes; it was the fan. So now that i know its the fan... is it a concern? I mean it only makes the noise for about 30 secs and it seems to run fine; however, should i replace it just in case? or wait till it goes out on its own? Its a fairly small fan should be like what 3-4 bucks to replace? Much better then a crispy 320 gig hdd? Or do noisy fans still produce well and are just annoying?
 
good to know you've found your problem..
fan... yes and no.. if the initial startup burst doesnt bother you then by all means live with it...
you can (just as a suggestion) put in a bit of lubricant or graphite+oil or somethign on the fan.. or replace it if you know how.. but thats entirely up to you..
or if its under warrenty get them to change it for you :evil: hehe.. for a bit of your inconvenience...

but do take the usual precaution of the hdd overheating when the fan decides to pack its bags...
 
Little offtopic here but anyway the problem of the tread is solved
N3051M:I can see you have a very good pc configuration but I am wondering why you choose asrock for motherboard. Asrock is trash (personal opinion) and you can see this for yourself when it did not obbey to your bios settings.
I have one word for motherboards: Asus....or maybe 2-3:gigabyte,epox,abit but this is all.
Peace :)
 
yeh i know the asrock is plain rubbish (ran out of pci slots.. used up all my ram.. used up all my sata ports and ide's....). i used to have a gigabyte mobo long time when this rig was built, but got fried during the course of time (electrical spike).. so a friend installed this one for me... back in those days of noobishness :D...

cant be bothered changing it now.. saving up for a whole bunch of studio gear and my new rig.. which will be built next year when all the tech hype (vista, dx10, multicores cpus) settle down a bit... so i'll bear with it unless someone decides to donate a mobo to me :)
 
To Shawn2k5

For noisy fan:
If its making louder sounds or other sounds, peel back the label on it and put some powdered graphite on it, along with just a small touch of oil, then put label back on with a small bit of tape like duct tape.
Powdered graphite is good because when you oil a fan it goes bad again in a few weeks or months, but if you use powdered graphite you only have to do this ONCE for the life of the fan. You can buy it at any hardware or auto store, the auto people can tell you how good it is!
I have been using powdered graphite for about 7 yrs now.
I have an MNSI neo2 P4 mobo and it came with a noisy fan so i did my graphite trick. This is my everyday pc and its on about 16 hours a day, sometimes more, been going for about 4 yrs now with same quiet fan!
So this is a good hint for anyone with any noisy fan as powdered graphite beats oil hands down by a mile. But its good to use a bit of oil only to help spread the graphite around faster. All you have to do is run the fan for about 5 seconds and all fan noises leave. Note this doesnt work as well with very very old fans with totally worn bearings but it will help them as well.
 
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