Beeping Hard Drive - Western Digital WD scorpio - XPS M1530

msvalhalla

Make and Model: Dell XPS M1530
OS: Windows Vista
HDD: Western Digital Scorpio 320GB

I replaced my laptop HDD a few months ago with a WD Scorpio 320GB.

In the last two weeks my laptop started beeping at random times and I have found it to come from the HDD bay (not the speakers). This does not happen at startup, it happens at completely random times when using the laptop and is not associated with what I am doing at the time on the laptop. The "beeps" are individial and when it starts beeping there are usually several beeps within a few minutes of each other, i.e. 10-20 individual beeps over a 5-10 minute period. The beep may not happen everyday.

Anyone have any ideas what this is? WD diagnostics do not show up any errors on the HDD and Windows Event Viewer is not logging anything HDD related. Again I am confident the beep is coming from the HDD bay.

Google does not help me in narrowing it down. Any suggestions or experience before I send back the drive for a replacement?

Thanks,
Mike

Rebel021

Have you checked to see if a firmware update would fix the beeping problem

Voodu Child

Some Intel CPUs are know to make beeping noises when they enter a particular power state. Would that be it (a beeping/whining noise)?

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=0A7D5CD2E17F5125E0401E0A55176204&doclang=en&cs=

msvalhalla

Rebel021 - I can't find any firmware updates for the HDD, or any firmware info for that matter. It seems that manufacturers don't publicise that information much...

Voodu Child - Looked into your suggestion and it is not the problem. It is not a whine either, it is like a beep from a digital watch (for the want of a better description!)

I've queried the WD support team so if they find a solution I will post the answer.

Thanks,

Mike

Soundman

From a quick google of "wd hard drive beeping", most of the answers don't seem to be good. Most who have encountered the same thing have backed up their info and RMA'd the drive if under warranty as it appears that it could be the motor in the drive giving up or there is something sticking causing a squeak/beep noise.

msvalhalla

FYI,

This is a reply from Western Digital,

"Thank you for your reply. I did some research on this issue with the beep and i found out that the beeps means two probably situations, overheat or memory shortage ( either RAM or processor ), and also verify that i was wrong, the sound does not come from the hard drive but from a place near to it. My best recommendation will be to back up your hard drive and verify the temperature of the laptop while working on it and if you are loading heavy programs all at the same time please increase memory."

For my situation, I have 4GB of RAM so I think I am safe on that side, and add to that that the beep has occurred during simple web browsing.

The temperature thing may be an issue, where the drive is not cooling adequately in its location in the XPS, so I will keep an eye on that from now on.

Also FYI, I found an app on http://www.almico.com called Speedfan that is relatively basic but monitors all temperatures available on a PC/laptop and also gathers useful SMART info from your HDD. Beware though, this app allows modification of system hardware settings so use at your own risk...

To sum up though, when I get advice to back up a drive from a the manufacturers support group I believe I will be getting it replaced shortly...

Mike

rsnyder

I have a Lenovo T60 laptop which I recently put a new WD 160gb drive in and after a couple weeks of use I noticed the HD beeping. Sounds just like the issue you're having. I have a WD case # and will probably request them to replace it.

msvalhalla

rsnyder - I've just swapped out the HDD and backed it up and it is still beeping in an external 2.5" case (which is at least good news when they check it under the returns process). I will be getting it RMA'd in the coming days with Komplett.

FYI - the beep has recently been augmented with a new issue. Every so often there are 3-4 "beeps" in quick succession followed by a click. Prob a head/arm problem and leads me to assume that the "beep" is a mechanical problem. The drive is still performing fine and doesn't have any issues in the SMART info.