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Hard Drive Information:

Make: Western Digital
Model Number: WD5000BPKT
What the non-computer-fellas call it: Western Digital Scorpio Black
Age: About 2 to 3 months old.
Power On Hours: 127 Hours
Load-Unload Cycles: 777
Unsafe Shut Down Count: 8 (I am dumb)

So, of late, my HDD makes a sound. A click-like sound.
I have been bothering the community members in the chat with this question and they have been extremely patient with it.
So, after digging a lot into the architecture of the hard drive, I have come across the following conclusion:

  • The click is actually the sound of load-unload cycle

    • "... WD thought it would be a great feature to build a timer in their firmware to autopark the heads after 8 seconds so to reduce energy"

    I found this on NCIX forums about WD GREEN drives but I guess it makes sense to have it in a black drive, too.
    So how could you be sure that this is indeed a sound of the head park?
    I hear it every time the laptop shuts down.

    So what's your point?

  • Is my observation correct or do I need to RMA it asap?

    • share|improve this question
    I get a click sound when my Seagate Barracuda Green drives power off, too. Ditto with a Hitachi drive in a HP laptop with auto park when it senses sudden movement. The 'click of death' that indicates failure is typically repetitive (or the drive will stop responding after the click). – Bob Dec 22 '12 at 7:39
    If you're on Linux you could do hdparm --idle-unload /dev/sdX (replace with your drive's device name) to park the heads, and see if it makes the same noise. – user55325 Dec 22 '12 at 7:42
    @Bob well, I have this issue where the HDD light goes off abruptly and the laptop freezes. I thought this was because of head park and left it idle for a few mins. No mouse movements, No Nothing I am on an HP laptop too :) Yeah, the drive does stop responding sometimes after/before a click – Little Child Dec 22 '12 at 20:07

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