M6600 hard drive problems (WD3200BPVT)

The drive that came in my M6600, a WD3200BPVT, makes a rhythmic click sound about every 5-7 seconds. I have run the WD diagnostic on the drive (short and long tests) and it tests fine. Is this normal for the Blue series?

If so, I'd just live with it except that occasionally the drive doesn't get detected in the BIOS setup.

I am currently running a SSD and the WD, both with Win 7 Pro installed to eventually do some comparisons in disk performance. When I load Windows from the SSD, the WD still has this rhythmic click to it, even when not being accessed. I have noticed that when the clicking stops for longer than its typical 5-7 second interval, the whole system becomes unresponsive. Once it clicks again, everything else catches up.

I am going to remove the disk to see if the system hang ups go away.

Any ideas on what is going on? Do I have a bad drive that tests ok?

 

I just had to RMA a desktop WD Black with a similar issue. It passed all the tests but the system would just stop for 5-20 seconds, then resume right where it left off as if nothing ever happened.

The other possibility is that you have something running off of the WD drive. When it spins down you have to wait for it to spin up when the program next accesses the disk. Improbable, but still.

Regardless, if it's noisy and you're under warranty get it replaced.

 

yes that is ominous certainly. Of course also if it is not detected in bios. Did the drive come with the system?

Although it is Dell policy that you need error code to have your parts replaced, especially for HDD, ram, and cpu, given your circumstances, and polite explanation, they will go ahead and replace for ya. That happened with one of my 750gb one and though there was no error code, they approved it.

 

As a follow up, Dell determined the drive was bad. They sent me a Seagate as a replacement. Due to several other issues, they replaced the whole laptop for me with a 2960xm/Quadro 5010m. Very happy.

 

Well that's pretty good. Sometimes diagnostics can pass, but the drive can still be failing. What we do in our tech shop for issues like that is replace the drive with a known working drive and reinstall a temporary OS to see if it works.