Hi,
I have an os hard drive, and a storage hard drive, as many people like to do if they have multiple hard drives. Every so often (usualy once a week, or something) it would make a clicking noise, and freeze for a second. I thought this was normal, and thought nothing of it.
But lately, it'll click every five minutes, and will stop working for over 30 seconds. (As you can imagine, this is very anoying when listening to music, or something)
And when I try to move a large [ammount of] file(s) to my storage hard drive, it usualy goes very slowly. Like a 100MB file can take up to 10 minutes to move.

Do I need to ask for a new hard drive for Christmas (waranty has expired) or does someone know of a way to fix this? (Maybe a program I can use or something?)
Oh, and it's a Maxtor S-ATA, 140GB hard drive, if that helps.

Thanks in advance for any input on the problem. =)

First, check on boot-up that 'SMART' is enabled on the drive - it's turned on & off in the BIOS. Though only basic it will give you an indication if your drive is potentially failing. Second, are you sure the drive warranty has expired? SATA is relatively new & many drives have a manufacturer's 3 year warranty even if your whole system may only have 12 months. Go to Maxtor's site & download the diagnostic utility - you can then (1) run a diagnostic on it & (2) identify your drive serial number which you can check on Maxtor's site as to whether the warranty is still valid.

"I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

I agree with the HDD testing recommended by johnr. Seagate has online and downloadable utilities too.

But ..... I wouldn't put anything on that HDD that isn't backed-up or that you can't afford to lose. I think that that HDD is going to fail .... maybe real soon!

johnr: Thanks, I'll check the bios, and diagnostic utility, then I'll check for the waranty.

Badboy: Yeah, I backed up the stuff on my hard drive onto DVDs about a month ago. However, now, when I try and copy stuff onto my portable hard drive, my hard drive keeps locking up, and then my copying just sits there...Like if you're downloaidng a file, then your router dies or something, but the download window stays open, but the file isn't actualy downloading.
Does anyone know of a utility I can use that might resume copying if it freezes? ('Cause right now, I'm just selecting files, and copying them over using explorer. And since I can't leave them copying for a long time, I have to sit there and select a couple files at a time, and copy them over, in case it locks up.)

Thanks for the feedback so far. =)

it's dying.
These are higly unreliable HDs. My friend lost a SATA maxtor drive after a year, just after warranty expired, I swear they have an unternal clock ;-)
Check http://www.storagereview.com/ performance database before buying a new one.
Some people say that freezing bad drive overnight can temporarily help to retrieve data from bad drive, but newer tried myself.

If you put the HDD in the freezer for about an hour and reinstall it, it may function well for while.

Download 200 ways to revive a hdd here. http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-5029761.html#

http://computervitals.com/

I doubt if putting it in the freezer would help. Sounds like the electronic or mechanical has gone.

Oh, and that ticking - that is the countdown of doom :-)

Have you been really nice this year and asked Santa for a new hard drive?

Search Engines Are Your Friends

Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"

SMART appears to be on in the bios, and the diagnostics program says the hard drive is going to die.
And I just checked the waranty on the hard drive, and it expired 11/19/2005. Just like friendly_jacek's. =P
(I'll check out that performance database before I buy a new one)

Also, every so often my hard drive stops clicking, and works perfectly. (Usualy when I havn't been listening to music off it for a couple hours)
So I was able to copy stuff from it during one of those periods.
Once, a bunch of my files dissapeared, and I thought I had lost them, from hard drive failure, but then today (A couple days later) I find them back where they were.

Thanks for the sugestions on how to get the files out, and overall what was wrong with my hdd. =)

I'm glad this happened around christmas time. It's not exactly the happiest thing to happen on christmas, but at least now I know what to tell people when they ask me what I want.