Hard Drive Low Buzzing

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FreeWayPineapple

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Mar 3, 2015
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I have noticed that my hard drive has been making a steady low buzzing noise recently. I have a Seagate Barracuda 3tb and have had it for about 1 1/2 years. I booted up the pc without it plugged in and the noise was gone, which confirms that its the hard drive. I also checked to make sure that it was mounted correctly and it was, but I am not sure what to do now. It seems to still be working fine, but the noise is very annoying and loud.
 
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weberdarren97

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Aug 10, 2015
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Please describe the sound... Is it a smooth buzz like disks spinning and causing vibration from mounting screws not being tight (I know you said it's mounted correctly) or is it a more harsh sound? Knowing this may help us determine the cause.

However, once a hard drive starts misbehaving, it's time to back up everything. Don't turn the machine off before you back up because once a drive starts to misbehave, I can't guarantee that it'll be able to get the internal disks back up to speed after they come to a stop (even if it's only turned off for a few seconds).

Sorry for so many edits... Apparently I can't grammar today. I was so excited for my birthday today that I didn't sleep at all last night :D
 
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FreeWayPineapple

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I took a video of the noise. Now that you mention it, it does seem more like a smooth buzz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPriY8nZx5c Happy birthday too!
 
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weberdarren97

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Aug 10, 2015
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That sounds more like the cage is loose, but I'm not able to guarantee that it's not something inside the drive. If you put a little weight (like the weight of your hand) on the HDD cage that the drive is in, does the sound go away? If so, a little anti vibration spacers for the screws on the drive will solve your problem. If adding weight does nothing, I'm betting it's a problem within the drive.

Thank you!
 
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weberdarren97

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Aug 10, 2015
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Haven't seen you in awhile. Welcome back to the grind!

As for drives just breaking, it does happen, and it happens quite often. Simply put, what happens inside hard drives is quite violent. If anything goes wrong, the drive may destroy itself and never function. This is why my first recommendation when a user notices anything out of the ordinary with their drive(s) is always to back up all their stuff before analyzing what might be causing it.

If they find out it's nothing to worry about, they simply have two copies of their data. I don't see any problems there. If they didn't back up and restarted their machine and the drive didn't spin up properly, they could have just lost all their data. I would much rather prefer the first option over the second.

@Daren Happy Birthday!
Click to expand...

Thank you! :)
 
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FreeWayPineapple

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Unfortunately, I think my hard drives malfunctioning! Putting a little weight on it does nothing. I also have nothing to back it up to, but I just have games and random downloads on it.
 
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weberdarren97

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Aug 10, 2015
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Borrow a friend's flash drive? Again, try to keep this machine running as long as you can because turning it off may cause the hard drive to seize, meaning that it might not be able to get the internal disks back up to speed once you shut it down.
 
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cryoburner

cryoburner

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Oct 8, 2011
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One other thing to add would be to check whether any other loose screws, cables or other parts of the case are vibrating against anything. The vibration from a hard drive can cause your whole case to vibrate a little, and if some spare cable connector or other object is just lightly touching part of the case, it could potentially result in an audible buzzing sound.



You don't have to back up everything, just anything that might not be easily replaceable. Documents, photos, game save files and so on. If you have an optical drive, you could burn the data to CD-R or DVD-R discs as well, if there isn't too much of it.
 
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