New 250 Gb SATA drive making loud noises

[AlbertLionheart]

Anyone any ideas with this one?
A brand new Maxtor 250 Gb SATA drive in a new system built by me suddenly started making a really load banging noise (like someone knocking on a door), This was accompanied by a report of a fatal windows error; then it stopped and everything was normal.
I have fitted a replacement drive and ghosted the contents across without a problem - bearing in mind that ghost will not work if there is a fault on the source drive.
The "faulty" drive has been on test in the wksps using seatools and passes everything thrown at it and no more of the noises - not a sausage! There is no question that it was the drive and no other source
Deus ex machina or a ghost in the driveshaft?

 

[raybay]

Who knows how many times a hard drive is given excessive impact as it is shipped from Asia to the country where it is sold. The damage can be extensive if not very well protected during packing.
Then of course there is the history of unreliability of the Maxtor line as well.

There are Maxtors made in four different countries, which makes an evaluation even more difficult, because construction and reliability vary quite a bit. Even Seagate drives vary widely depending on whether they come from China, Korea, or the Philippines.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

This one is from Singapore - it has been on the bench all morning and still not reporting any faults.