Wierd Noise

[Amats]

Every once in a while, maybe twice a year it sounds like its the hard drive making kind of a rattling surging noise that repeats about 2 times a second.  The other symptoms that accompanies this phenomenon is extremely long load time for windows and download times.  Then after about a day or two it disappears as fast as it started.  Could this be someone trying to hack my system?

[Computer_Commando]

...Could this be someone trying to hack my system?...

Sounds more like a motor bearing in the hard drive beginning to fail.  Keep your data backed up every day.

[joe3fl]

I would suggest downloading and running Hard Disk Sentinel ( www.hdsentinel.com ). It will tell you the health and status of all hdd's on your machine.

[quaxo]

Every once in a while, maybe twice a year it sounds like its the hard drive making kind of a rattling surging noise that repeats about 2 times a second.  The other symptoms that accompanies this phenomenon is extremely long load time for windows and download times.  Then after about a day or two it disappears as fast as it started.  Could this be someone trying to hack my system?

1. Backup any important documents, files, etc. now.

2. Find the manufacturer's name on the drive (should be on the label on the drive). Go to their site and download the diagnostics utility.

3. Run the utility now and also the next time it happens and see what results you get.

To be honest though, Computer_Commando is probably right. The drive is likely beginning to fail.

[Amats]

Thank you for all the good information.  It turns out that the noise was one of my fans going bad.  I downloaded hdsentinel and ran it showing 100% for performance and 89% health but its got me thinking to backup anyway in case of virus.  I think I will install a second hard drive to clone this one on to and then disconnect it.  Can you recommend a good cloning program to use that creates a bootable program?

[patio]

All HDD manuf. diagnostics tools contain a Free cloning tool...

Hook up new drive as slave...boot to the manuf. CD....clone old to the new...power down...connect new as master...disconnect old ...and itt should boot fine 1st time.

NOTE: Retail packaged HDD's will contain the boot CD...if you buy barebones HDD to save money you will have to DLoad the software from the manuf. site and create a boot CD.

[Computer_Commando]

...It turns out that the noise was one of my fans going bad....

If CPU or GPU fan, start shopping for a replacement.

[Amats]

Does that disk that comes with the hard drive come with software that I can use to backup the hard drive?  What I want to do is install a new hard drive and leave the old one installed too.  I want to clone my old hard drive to the new one then unplug the new one and update it once a month.

[Computer_Commando]

This will do the job for you:  http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

[patio]

All HDD manuf. diagnostics tools contain a Free cloning tool...

Hook up new drive as slave...boot to the manuf. CD....clone old to the new...power down...connect new as master...disconnect old ...and itt should boot fine 1st time.

NOTE: Retail packaged HDD's will contain the boot CD...if you buy barebones HDD to save money you will have to DLoad the software from the manuf. site and create a boot CD.

[Amats]

Thanks for the help!