Possible hard disk faulty, please help....

[damienb]

Just built a new machine and booted it for first time the other day. Had a problem first of all with the machine losing power and dying. Sorted that by buying a new PSU. The PSU was the only part that was definatley not brand new so sods law really.

Got the new power supply installed and booted up to run the Vista install from disc. There is a weird clunking sound coming from the hard disk though and occasionally a kind of bouncing sound can just be heard. When I got to the hard disk Partition/formatting part before the actual install, it showed up the hard disk with the correct capacity so I partitioned with the maximum amount and then clicked on format. It just hung for ages and then told me no hard disk could be found.

I checked the BIOS and it was seeing a hard disk and showing the correct capacity.

I dont know what to think?? Is my hard disk faulty. what is that weird sound? Does anyone know???

Damien

 

[tipstir]

Did you tighten the screws on the HDD?
Why didn't let Vista Format the HDD to new NFS.
If you a clunking noise the HDD is gone..

Did you say you just built a new PC but used old parts?

 

[damienb]

The screws are wuite tight enough.

Vista tells me it cant see a hard disk to install to.

There is a clunking noise and occasionally a soft bouncing sound.

I have just built the machine. All parts were brand new apart from the PSU which turned out to be faulty. That has been replaced now though as it was stopping me from starting the machine up.

The hard disk was brand new but was OEM and only came in a a plastic case with bubble wrap.

Everything else is brand spanking new!!

 

[Rick]

It's perfectly possible for your new hard drive to be non-operational (although uncommon, not rare).

Any clicking (or unusual) sounds from a 3.5" desktop drive usually spells disaster. I would send off for a replacement. Laptop drives (2.5") will sometimes 'clunk' and 'bounce' and that is by design. This is supposedly part of a self-correcting mechanism, but I've never seen it on a 3.5".

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Apart from maybe a faulty disk, if it is a SATA drive, you need to install the SATA drivers first (F6 during XP-setup, don't know if it's the same in Vista) from the supplied floppy or CD.

 

[damienb]

It is a SATA2 drive and Vista did say that it could not find a drive to install to and that a driver may be needed. The hard disk did not come with any floppy disk or any CD though. Its weird, it came in a very small pastic case, the perfect shape for it, wrapped in a small layer of bubble wrap, nothing else.

OK, maybe it does need a driver maybe??? But this still wouldn't expain the abnormal clunking and bouncing sounds coming from the drive. Ive done some research and found out that both of those sounds are symtoms of defective drive head(s). This may well have been caused by damge in transit as it was poorly pakaged in my opinion.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Try to RMA the harddisk. If the place you bought it from, is any decent, they should let you return it for an exchange HD. There might also be a manufacturer's warranty on it.
If you bought it on eBay, well, good luck.