Hard Drive "thumping" sound????

It can't be good, can it?

Back up your data.

Welcome to the forums Thirteen :emotion-21:

What system is it in, and what OS/version are you using?

Whilst not of particular importance regarding this particular problem, they should always be mentioned anyway.

As I'm sure you'll appreciate, it's nigh on impossible for anyone on forums to determine possible causes of specific noises just from someone else's description of it/them, because 'noise' is obviously something which has to be heard.

All I can say with any conviction, is that it's certainly not normal for hard drives to be making any noise really - other than those made during standard seek/write operations, so I hope you have up-to-date backups of everything important to you!?

Have you run the Dell diagnostics, to see if they uncover any problem with it?

But you might want to run Seagate's own 'SeaTools' diagnostics software on it as well?

Thirteen

Run Dell Diagnostics extended test on the hard drive.

Bev.

XPS 630i

XP Professional

I ran the Dell diagnostics and everything passed. The only SeaTools test that I could get to run was the "short generic" (which it passed), everything else said "Test Unavailable" when I tried to run it.

So I guess I'm gonna have to deal with tech support again, huh? I was afraid of that.

This drive's only a couple weeks old...I knew that sound wasn't good as soon as I put the thing in, but I just didn't have the patience to deal with tech support anymore at that point...:emotion-45:

Here's the timeline:

Thanksgiving day my hard drive fails (6 month old PC).

I contact Dell the next day and give them the Diagnostic results, and they confirm that the HD is dead. They say they'll overnight me a new drive (this was Friday, so it would arrive Monday).

Monday I get the drive and put it in, and it's all screwed up...I contact Dell and they do that thing where they connect to my PC over the internet so they can look at it directly...Turns out the drive was imaged wrong. It was set up for some Alienware system with completely different hardware and that's why it won't work. I'm told they'll have to overnight me the correct one...

Tuesday, I didn't get it.

Wednesday, I didn't get. So I called them...Apparently something was screwed up, and "the order was still pending"...They say they'll ship it out right away and I'll have it  "tomorrow".

Thursday morning I contact tech support through the online chat feature, just to make sure that it was sent...They tell me the order has been canceled. (For no apparent reason. And without notifying me.) :emotion-12:.......Eventually I was told that the drive would be overnighted to me...

Friday I finally received my hard drive, set up for the right computer with the correct drivers......Granted, it sounds like it contains an unhappy gremlin with a sledge hammer, but aside from that, it seems okay...

This whole system is a replacement. The first one died after 6 months. And after replacing virtually every component with no luck, they sent me this one. (http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19265431.aspx)

P.S.

To add insult to injury...The day after my hard drive died, the day known as "Black Friday", I had planned to purchase a new Dell monitor...The SP2309W was going to be $100 off that day. I didn't have access to a PC with updated security software so I was reluctant to make the purchase...I thought I was lucky when I tried saving it to my account and it said it would hold it for me at that price for 30 days.

The monitor has since disappeared from my saved cart. And after several days and multiple attempts to contact them about the issue, I've concluded that Dell tech support is never going to return my emails.

P.P.S

Could someone please just shoot me? LOL :emotion-9:

Thirteen

Good luck with Dell's Tech, Support.    :emotion-4:

I've just been through the same experience, because this week Dell replaced replaced a failed hard drive on my 2.4 year old, 530MT.

Dell sent a Techie to install the replacement, plus it was a preimaged drive and I did not have to load windows and the drivers.   :emotion-5:

Bev.