[TopPop]

Okay, so for quite a while now, I've been having "issues" with my laptop (HP dv2014... I think). When I wake it up from sleep, the hard drive will make some ugly noise, and then I'll get a blue screen with one of various messages on it (I don't remember what they are, but I can write it down next time it happens, if necessary).

Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. For a span of about three weeks, or so, I was able to get it to stop by not keeping my laptop plugged in at night. But now it just does it if it feels like it, regardless of what I try to do. If it does wake up without any issues, though, it's totally fine for the rest of the time I have it on. That being said, I did have it happen once while I was working (about a week and a half ago), but all the other times have been after opening the screen up and having it come out of sleep/hibernation.

I don't know much about computers, but I would have thought it was the hard drive, since it's making those noises (spin starts, chirps, clicks, etc.) at the same time, but I ran a hard drive diagnosis in BIOS, and there was no reported problem. So I'd rather not spend money on a new hard drive if something else is the problem.

Thoughts?

(Justin, I know that you'll respond, at least!

)

Oh... and PLEASE, people... don't respond with "You should have bought _______", or "This is why I own Apple!"... that just won't help anybody, now will it?

 

[Kirosia]

The OS just could be messed up, but yeah, that sounds like a dying HDD. I had the same problems with my last PC.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia /img/forum/go_quote.gif The OS just could be messed up, but yeah, that sounds like a dying HDD. I had the same problems with my last PC.

That's a good point, because I've also had problems the last few weeks with my wireless mouse and my USB keyboard.

Do you think it might be worth just doing a fresh install first?

 

[Kirosia]

Definitely, though make sure you back everything up first. If the OS still exhibits the same problems after the re-install, then get yourself a new HDD quick. I personally lost 250GB of stuff.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia /img/forum/go_quote.gif Definitely, though make sure you back everything up first. If the OS still exhibits the same problems after the re-install, then get yourself a new HDD quick. I personally lost 250GB of stuff.

Bummer, man...

Thanks for the help! I backup every 2-4 weeks, but I'll do it again tonight, and try to do a fresh install this weekend.

 

[Kirosia]

Then you should be fine. If I recall, another member had the same freezing/blue screen from sleep mode problem, and his HDD died soon after.

 

[MCC]

The manufacturer of your hard drive should have a diagnostic tool that you can burn to a CD and boot from. Go to My Computer, right click your C:\ drive, and go to the Hardware tab. You'll see a line of type "Disk drives"- that's your hard drive. Google the name (usually the part number) and you have your manufacturer.

Alternatively, newer Lenovo ThinkPads have a generic hard disk diagnostic tool built-in to the BIOS if you happen to own one.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MCC /img/forum/go_quote.gif The manufacturer of your hard drive should have a diagnostic tool that you can burn to a CD and boot from. Go to My Computer, right click your C:\ drive, and go to the Hardware tab. You'll see a line of type "Disk drives"- that's your hard drive. Google the name (usually the part number) and you have your manufacturer. Alternatively, newer Lenovo ThinkPads have a generic hard disk diagnostic tool built-in to the BIOS if you happen to own one.

No ThinkPad (it's an HP), but there is a hard disk diagnostic tool in the BIOS. I've used it, and nothing came up.

I could try it again, though...

 

[Makenshi]

er if your hd is making weird noises it's most likely in the process of dying. Most recent consumer hard drives have decent acoustic managements. That being said, since it only occurs after a specified event, it could just be M$ and its awesome OS. If it's still under warrant I'd just get it replaced anyways. I think HP does cross shipping where they let you back up stuff before sending the old hard drive back.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makenshi /img/forum/go_quote.gif er if your hd is making weird noises it's most likely in the process of dying. Most recent consumer hard drives have decent acoustic managements. That being said, since it only occurs after a specified event, it could just be M$ and its awesome OS. If it's still under warrant I'd just get it replaced anyways. I think HP does cross shipping where they let you back up stuff before sending the old hard drive back.

Out of warranty, unfortunately (I've had it for a little less than 2.5 years now), which is why I was trying to troubleshoot the problem, as best as I could, so I'm not just blindly throwing my own money at possibly solutions..

 

[Makenshi]

Try to replicate the error and see if you can get the BSOD message. Also, try disabling the power-saving schemes like on your hard drive through Windows or some third party program like HDDTune and see if that does anything. As pointed out above, you can also format as a last ditch effort (though I hate having to find the CDs and reinstalling all the programs).

If you are in the market for a small portable hard drive (or better yet, if you already have one), you can switch the two drives. That way you'll get a peace of mind and also see if it makes the weird noises when it's not the boot drive.

 

[Vayate]

Use Disk Checkup to check the SMART data for your hard drive. If you have a bunch of errors, it's time for a new HDD. If that comes back clean for some reason, also run a surface test with SpinRite to check for bad sectors and recover data. If it ends up taking forever to read some of the sectors or marks them as outright bad, you've got faulty hardware on your hands. An alternative surface test is HDD Scan, which reads access times in addition to bad sectors. It's another good way to see if your HDD is failing.

 

[ksu06]

Not to generalize, but all the computers I encounter with this issue turn out to be a software issue. To that end, I would just backup and reformat ... spend two hours to either completely fix the problem or know for sure if it(the hard drive) is bad (if the problem persist afterwards). I'm not a fan of running diagnostics because I have never really come across one that is 100% or even 90% effective, but then again, I am the OCD guy who reformats every computer in the house once every year (geez, my mom has a gift for letting in spyware!).

 

[Makenshi]

The problem with HD is that while there are many ways to foreshadow a hard drive failure, there's not a reliable way to test to see whether your hard drive is going south. I remember reading somewhere that only about 1/3 or 1/2 of hard drives that die gets the SMART warning; personally, I have NEVER seen SMART, but I have over a dozen dead drives. At best, a couple of them showed sector errors doing surface scans, but a lot of them simply start clicking or outright drop dead.

ps you can do a sector test with chkdsk

 

[Vayate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makenshi /img/forum/go_quote.gif The problem with HD is that while there are many ways to foreshadow a hard drive failure, there's not a reliable way to test to see whether your hard drive is going south. I remember reading somewhere that only about 1/3 or 1/2 of hard drives that die gets the SMART warning; personally, I have NEVER seen SMART, but I have over a dozen dead drives. At best, a couple of them showed sector errors doing surface scans, but a lot of them simply start clicking or outright drop dead. ps you can do a sector test with chkdsk

The SMART thresholds for the warning indicate immediate failure of the drive. imho they are much too low to be useful and not a reliable indicator of hard drive health. However, the status of the drive can be read using the raw data and ignoring the thresholds, which is what Disk Checkup does. This will allow you to see if you're getting large numbers of seek errors, general corrected errors, etc even of the value is not below the SMART threshold.

(Click for larger version)
This tool makes SMART a valuable tool when diagnosing hardware issues.

In regard to differentiating hardware from software, it's quite possible to do but it takes a good bit of experience. These days I can usually eyeball a failing hard drive just by how a machine behaves. Naturally, I back that assessment up with repeatable tests that have measurable results, but my initial assessment is correct for the overwhelming majority of cases. Having said that, I have not operated the OP's machine so I'm not in a position to provide such assessment; the best I can do is provide the tests.