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[Tritroid]

Ok so on Thursday I get up to head to work, walk downstairs, glance at my PC on the way out the door and see a beautiful blue screen of death.

Now whenever I restart the thing, it brings up a F1/F2 prompt and DOS setup. The thing that's really scaring me is that in the setup menu it's telling me that it can't find my HDD. @_@

There's also this really strange clicking noise coming from inside the tower that sounds like it's trying to connect to the board or something.

I'm on my work PC right now, but I think I'm going to call Dell service when I get home.

 

[jenov4]

Yes that sounds like the click of death on your hard drive. Hope you got your data backed up. Good luck with that. I've had that happen to my IBM drives a few weeks ago.. It's a real sinking feeling you get when you find out all your data is gone.

 

[nubbe]

BIOS won’t show your HDD if it can’t run a diagnostic scan on it at boot up.
The read/write head is probably dead if it’s just clicking during boot up, or it could be a physical damage on the disc surface.

 

[goodcow]

It's most likely dead.

 

[Tritroid]

Well I ran 3 or 4 diagnostic scans, and everything checked out, so I don't understand what the problem is.

It sounds like it's trying to boot up at restart but then it just gives up and greets me with the F1/F2 prompt instead of the OS. It also clicks the entire time I have it running, it's not just a one time thing.

 

[Wario64]

Yes that sounds like the click of death on your hard drive. Hope you got your data backed up. Good luck with that. I've had that happen to my IBM drives a few weeks ago.. It's a real sinking feeling you get when you find out all your data is gone.

I got upset when that happened early damn year. Fucking IBM drives. I haven't had a HDD failure in years too

 

[goodcow]

I got upset when that happened early damn year. Fucking IBM drives. I haven't had a HDD failure in years too

The only drive I've ever had die was an IBM.

 

[Tritroid]

Is this common with Dell drives? I've only had it a year and a half. Thank God for warranty.

 

[jenov4]

Yes, I will never touch an IBM / Hitachi drive again. Those things are pieces of sh1t.

 

[Diablos]

Sounds like it's dead.

Did you notice it making weird noises or anything a few weeks ago? Or did it just go from working normally to doing what it just did?

 

[Tritroid]

Sounds like it's dead.

Did you notice it making weird noises or anything a few weeks ago? Or did it just go from working normally to doing what it just did?

It was working perfectly fine the night before. I decided to restart it though before I went to bed, just to keep everything fresh.

The next morning, I see the blue screen and all went to hell.

 

[Diablos]

Who makes your hard drive? Doesn't Dell use WD?

 

[Tritroid]

>: (

I just called Dell, went through all the 'sekrit' commands, and told them what was up with it.

My HDD is officially dead according to them. They're going to call me in 2 or 3 days to schedule a time to come out and replace it.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUUUUUCK.

 

[SKluck]

Loud clicking USUALLY means it is dead. Not always though. This is a bit of a post mortem but I had my main hdd randomly click for roughly 1 minute at a time and stop, only when I opened new IE windows.

I knew it was only a matter of time, I had a lot of important stuff, that I couldn't back up, but decided to gamble with it and wait until I see a good deal on a HDD.

It did that for about 5 months. Didn't die though, thank god.

I bought a 160 gig, transfered everything, but kept the shit IBM drive as a slave, was woken up about a week later in the middle of the night to a clicking drive. Thought it was the new one, but it wasn't. The IBM finally died. At least I think it did, I haven't tested it since.

I don't know EXACTLY what was wrong with it, you never do, but I did run scandisk and a bunch of repairs which did lessen the frequency of that clicking, but it would take a week and just go right back up and constantly do it once every 10 minutes.

Pointless story cut short, just don't do what I did.

If it clicks, it is only a matter of time. It is beyond the point of no return.