not a recalibration click, a clunk (S.M.A.R.T. question)

[pxc]

I have a Maxtor SATA hard drive that gives an awful clunk when it hits a particular section of the drive. At first I thought the noise was a bad power connection/power down (heads parking), but it's not. The clunk has quieted itself over the months, but it's still there.

I've run a S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics logging utility (not a Maxtor utility, a 3rd party utility) for a few days and there's no problem flagged even when it hits the bad section. I also have S.M.A.R.T. enabled in the CMOS set up and have never received a warning in 6 months of use AFAIK. I believe the noise is from a bad section of the drive being rapidly seeked to the spare sector section and returned through the rough patch several times.

I can use acoustic management to quiet the clunk (i haven't yet). My question is: what does a BIOS S.M.A.R.T. warning look like? I haven't had any warning(s) stop POST. I would rather RMA the drive at the first sign of problems than lose anything, but I would also rather not have a refurb replacement for a 6 month old drive.

 

[Dark Ember]

Certainly doesn't sound normal... what kind of drive is it? Have you run the maxtor utility to check it?

I'd get the Maxtor diag util off of maxtor.com, run that, and see if it reports any errors. If not, call Maxtor tech support and see if you can RMA it anyway.

Either way, I'd at least back your data up for now...

 

[davidlem]

As said above, I would backup your data *yesterday*. Next, RMA the drive and describe your noise.