Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive clicking but still works

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

Hi,I accidentally dropped my Seagate ST3320820AS for about 1 foot and it is clicking when booted, Is it going to die, I had this hard drive new for 6 days

Edit: The drive is not clicking that much when I boot it to my second hard drive with windows 8.1 and exploring the files there

RememberThe5th · May 31, 2018

Download hdtunepro nd run error scan (not quick but full) and if it doesnt show any errors, i guess its fine.

Or use seatools and check with it ( or do with both c

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

RememberThe5th :

It's still clicking while HDTune is reading the error. Is that okay?

justin.m.beauvais · May 31, 2018

Can you describe this clicking? Is it a rapid and irregular click like click-clicccckkkcccckcck-click-click-clcccckckccck or is it a steady click-click-click? (I hope that made sense...)

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

justin.m.beauvais :

It's like click....click.....click, But sometimes it's clickclickclickclickclickclickclick then 3 seconds and the it starts clicking again

justin.m.beauvais · May 31, 2018

Ah, the steady clicking is worrying... I've only seen it in 2 cases. One is when the drive didn't work at all and all it did was click. The other was the drive not having enough power... mainly because I had 7 drives in a system with an insufficient power supply. Generally a 1 ft drop won't kill a drive, especially if it isn't running. Part of that depends what surface it landed on and how it landed, but for most cases it won't even damage the drive. What kind of surface did it land on? Did it land flat or on edge?

Would you mind listing your system specs and psu wattage? We should try to figure out if it is a power issue or if this drive might have been damaged in shipping or something.

SkyNetRising · May 31, 2018

Mechanical drives rarely survive being dropped. You'll have to replace it.

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

justin.m.beauvais :

Label side down.

PSU: 550W PSU that comes with my PC Case (I don't know the brand since it's a local brand)

justin.m.beauvais · May 31, 2018

SkyNetRising :

I disagree. The Seagate drive in question is capable of withstanding a 300g shock for 2 msec when not operating. It says so in the data sheet. It can also withstand vibrations of .5g up to 5g depending on frequency. In most cases a short drop would not exceed these values.

justin.m.beauvais · May 31, 2018

DarklingGolem50 :

Landing flat is the best case for the platters, but not the heads, but damaged heads are usually an insta-kill on a drive. Did it land on carpet, tile, wood, concrete?

The PSU sounds sufficient, but what other hardware is in the system? What CPU, GPU, how many other drives?

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

justin.m.beauvais :

DarklingGolem50 :

Landing flat is the best case for the platters, but not the heads, but damaged heads are usually an insta-kill on a drive. Did it land on carpet, tile, wood, concrete?

The PSU sounds sufficient, but what other hardware is in the system? What CPU, GPU, how many other drives?

Asus P5G41C M LX
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
9800 GT (Newly installed)
Samsung SP1213C 120 Hard Drive

I accidentally dropped it on a tile, while installing the Graphics Card

stdragon · May 31, 2018

Did you do as Robert Ban suggested and run Seatools?

https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

If it fails the extended/long test, then you'll need to RMA that drive.

Personally, I NEVER trust a drive (HDD, it's mechanical) that's been dropped to last more than a few months, let alone years. Continue to use it if you must, but back that thing up every night! Performing backups is good advice for everyone, but in your situation, double-down on it pronto!

SkyNetRising · May 31, 2018

justin.m.beauvais :

350 G are quite easy to achieve. Let's assume it stops in .1 millimeter. That means a 3.5cm drop will accelerate it enough to cause 350G deceleration in 0.1 millimeter. That's only about 1.3 inches.
So almost any drop onto a hard surface is a bad thing.

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

stdragon :

It's still doing it's thing

stdragon · May 31, 2018

DarklingGolem50 :

That's good that you're running that. Let it finish of course. However, still check with Seatools as well. There might be S.M.A.R.T. attributes that only it (Seatools) can interpret.

Karadjgne · May 31, 2018

Justin, I disagree. A cell phone dropped from a height of 4 feet hits with an impact of @2000G. Something the weight of a HDD, even dropped a foot is going to equal an impact of greater than 350G, the HDD simply has 10x the mass of a cellphone, even if acceleration is considerably less.

I'd say the chances of that HDD being just slightly bust are extremely good, especially since it has a most definite clicking which is entirely not normal behavior for a healthy HDD, but is entirely normal behavior for anything with moving parts having suffered high G impacts.

I'd clone that HDD asap to a replacement before the clicking develops into sudden and irreversible catastrophic failure.

Diagnostic tools are great for slow death sector quarantines or even scratch quarantines as they'll give you time to get the data replaced or saved or even repaired. But diagnostic tools will do exactly nothing for bearings that burn out, a cracked shaft, or other sudden mechanical failure.

seagate_surfer · May 31, 2018

stdragon :

Hello all! Yes, as this is a Seagate drive, Seatools was designed specifically for them because we don't publish drive attributes and thresholds as a matter of policy, 3rd party utility results need to be taken with a grain of salt. Check out our Knowledge Base article for more info.

stdragon · May 31, 2018

Exactly. If the drive is clicking with a greater degree of occurrence than normally experienced pre-drop, you've probably knocked the actuator arm or head ever so slightly out of alignment. The clicking would then be the result of it constantly seeking the servo track data.

seagate_surfer · May 31, 2018

Hello DarklingGolem50, if you need to contact support, you may do so here after running Seatools as they will ask for the results. Best of luck.

RememberThe5th · May 31, 2018

That is very slooow reading/writing on hd tune, replace it is damaged. It should be faster around 60-30MB/s.
I had ide drive which worked slow, after 2 weeks it stopped working.
Try to transfer files if the speed isnt constand around 30-60 buy new one.

Just to add seagate surfer is official seagate support in this forum.

justin.m.beauvais · May 31, 2018

Yeah, with those results and a flat drop on a tile floor, you're going to need to RMA that drive. I had hoped that things would be ok, but it seems like you did damage the heads. If it had fallen on its side it might have been alright, but a flat drop must have bounced the heads together. Usually it is an instant death, but I guess you beat the odds there and only damaged it.

Good luck going forward. Sorry there is nothing more we can do to help.

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

Now it's whirring and clicking!!

stdragon · May 31, 2018

DarklingGolem50 :

Put a fork in it - it's done!

Hopefully you were able to backup your data from it while you still can/did?

DarklingGolem50 · May 31, 2018

stdragon :

I did back up everything to a USB Stick, But I didn't back up the Operating system (Yosemite Zone)

Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive clicking but still works

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Titan

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Titan

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