Is my Hard Drive failing?

[siratfus]

My hard drives are moved to and from my PCs via docking stations. Once docked, the normal behavior is for the computer to recognize it and you could hear the hard drive working a little, but once it settles in, the noise stop. Recently, the noise is not stopping. It's not a clicking noise, it's the same working noise as if you're transferring data. I'm pretty sure it's not a system configuration issue because I've docked the drive at another pc and the "working noise" is not stopping at the other pc either.

Knowing about this issue, yesterday, I ripped a blu-ray to this drive anyway. Usually when the ripping is done, the hard drive would stop also. But now it's taking hours after the rip for it to finish transferring the data. I know if I turn it off, it's going to say something to the effect... Delay Writing Failed. I've googled the delay write fail thing and I'm sure it's not a system issue. I have all the proper settings. Like I said, the drive is behaving weird no matter which computer I dock it to.

I've never experienced this before. I've heard the click of death in the past, but I've never experience this. Like I said, the noise is not a clicking sound, it's the exact same sound as if data is transferring.

Anyway, is my assumption correct? Is this drive going? It's a Western Digital Green drive that ends in EADS. Any advice? Something I haven't thought of? Thank you in advance!

[Bjs]

Give Active@hard disk monitor a run and see if it finds issues

[lacywest]

or try HDD Observer and see what it says ... health ... hours its been active ... blah blah blah

[redwudz]

'Delayed write failed' is usually a communication problem. More common with USB drives when the signal is dropped and the drive finally gives up trying to write the file. If it's specific to that drive and not the interface, it may be dying. You might try a full reformat if the diagnostic programs don't catch anything.

[ranchhand]

You can run Seagate Sea Tools for Windows (free) on it; I been using it for years and it's been spot-on in diagnostics so far.

[lordsmurf]

'Delayed write failed' is usually a communication problem. More common with USB drives when the signal is dropped and the drive finally gives up trying to write the file. If it's specific to that drive and not the interface, it may be dying. You might try a full reformat if the diagnostic programs don't catch anything.

This or...

In my experience, the self-powered drives/hubs aren't pulling good power from the system USB.
USB power honestly sucks.

I have several sys that can't use self-powered devices, not enough juice. It either fails to work or works half-assed.

[Computer Repair]

Yes, the hard drive could fail. Go to the maker website, search for hard drive tools, download it and test it. I prefer to use the long term test not the short. It seems the hard drive has a head problem.

[siratfus]

You can run Seagate Sea Tools for Windows (free) on it; I been using it for years and it's been spot-on in diagnostics so far.

I'm going to bump an old thread. When I started this thread, I left for China and didn't get a chance to try anybody's suggestions.

I came back a few days ago, and I ran the Sea Tools program both short and long, and it both said PASS.

Hard Drive still sounds like it's constantly working. I was hoping that after a month of not turning it on, it would go away, but it didn't.

[CobraPilot]

Have you tried installing this suspect HD without the docking station; i.e., direct connection to the PC?

Results?

[siratfus]

CobraPilot, I'll try that, but that's not how I want to use the drive. It's a media drive with lots of movie. It gets moved around a lot. I have 5 or 6 six internal drives that I move around a lot externally via docking stations and media players. This is the only drive that is funky.

Well, I did run the western digital data lifeguard program and it passed all the test, smart, short, long, etc. What does that mean anyway? It passed, hurray! It still acting funky. The working noise keeps going once the drive is accessed.

I think I'm just going to buy another drive, back-up all the contents. Then reformat it to see if that fixes it. If not, I'll send it back to WD.

[CobraPilot]

Regardless of how you want to use the drive, trying it in a different environment (direct connection) might help isolate the problem.

If it's still "funky" with a direct connection, it's probably new drive time. If not funky, it's not the drive.

[kimco52]

Look at your system logs. Sometimes they will tell you when they have problems and what they think is the problem. I have had info from them indicating that a drive was failing before I saw effects and sure enough, they were correct.