Hard Drive makes soft clicking noise when idling

[MplsFrak]

Just recently installed a 500gb Western Digital in my new system. Every second or so, when idling, the drive makes a soft "tick" noise. It's not something I would describe as the "click of death", but it still concerned me since the noise repeats itself frequently even when not writing. I ran chkdsk and the "data lifeguard" utility which came up with zero issues.

Based on troubleshooting steps from WD, I tried running the drive with the SATA3 data cable unplugged, with just power provided. With the data cable unplugged, the ticking stops. I replaced the cable and tested in a different SATA3 port in the MB. Ticking continues.

Is the drive bad?

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz Quad Core
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 MotherBoard
Western Digital WD RE4 WD5003ABYX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA
HIS Radeon HD 7850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
OCZ Fatal1ty 550W Modular Gaming Power Supply

 

[kenrivers]

Is this a new drive or one you had from another computer? If it is new I would suggest you RMA it for a new one. I have read that this could be related to "HDD head parking". You could also look at the Power Settings for the hard drive under Power Options in Control Panel.

 

[dudeknows]

i also experienced this on my 1 TB caviar black but the tick sounds rarely noticed.

 

[e56imfg]

My Seagate Barracuda clicks too. My drive works fine tho.

 

[quas]

hard to tell, just get a backup just in case...

 

[visa]

hard to tell, just get a backup just in case...

Yeah I would agree. If there's anything you can't afford to lose, back it up just in case.

 

[MplsFrak]

Is this a new drive or one you had from another computer? If it is new I would suggest you RMA it for a new one. I have read that this could be related to "HDD head parking". You could also look at the Power Settings for the hard drive under Power Options in Control Panel.

It is a new drive, and yes, I've started the RMA process with WD.

Odd side story to this issue: When I registered this drive with WD, it flagged the hard drive as "No Limited Warranty". Their drives are covered for 5 years, right? I contacted their support line and a representative advised that, based on the serial number, this drive was sold to NewEgg as "re certified" or part of a bundle deal, so the 5 year warranty was voided.

NewEgg sold it to me as new. Very disappointing. Thankfully, the WD rep is going to try to pull some strings to see if he can get the drive replaced for me.

(queue Ron Burgundy: "Great story. Compelling and rich.")

 

[MplsFrak]

Best answer selected by MplsFrak.