I am wondering if my drive is a lemon or if these are just normal sounds. I have used computers that were in a tower traditionally for years- in this instance I have a desktop that is right up by my face, so perhaps I am just more perceptive now- but I want to get some opinions.

I just installed a new Seagate 250GB HDD. I noticed that when it is seeking it makes what could be interpreted as a "scratchy" noise. The only thing I can associate it with would be that sound you can make by resting your front teeth tightly on your bottom lip, and drawing in air. The only sound I am used to hearing from an HDD is either nothing, or a light clicking or ticking sound.

A speedfan S.M.A.R.T. analysis gave me a 92% fitness rating on the drive- but it had a low score, "Good", for the RAW Read Error Rate.

Thanks,
Bill

Athlon XP 3200 Barton Core
BFG Geforce 6800GT O/C 256MB
1GB PC3200
Windows XP Professional SP2
BenQ 24" FP241W LCD

Are you sure the noise isn't coming from something else?
E.g. You might not be aware of the fact that Windows 95 and up spins your optical drives at seemingly random times if they have a disk in them, often without lighting up the led on the front of the optical drive. Remove any CDs or DVDs you have in drives to rule out noise from them (your description of the noise sounds like an optical drive starting to spin).

Go to the Seagate site and download their diagnostic utility and run both the short and longer test in it - that's the only one they will consider the results of to be valid for RMAing the drive, if it isn't up to snuff.

Thank you, I ran the diagnostic. One test FAILED, two wouldn't run, and two passed. I sent in an RMA this afternoon. Thanks for the advice.

Athlon XP 3200 Barton Core
BFG Geforce 6800GT O/C 256MB
1GB PC3200
Windows XP Professional SP2
BenQ 24" FP241W LCD

If you got the drive locally, some places will replace the drive over the counter within 30 or 60 days or similar.

If you sent it by mail, did you read and follow the minimum packaging requirements stated on the site?

Dropped it off at UPS today. I packed the snots out of it if thats what you refer to. I was pretty bummed out after bubble wrapping, taping and boxing the hard drive to have UPS throw my box in another box. I was about to protest, but at that point my skin had worn to thin to tolerate the criticism of my packaging. $15 to ship it seemed pretty steep to me, I left a little depressed. The drive was only $62 from Directron.com (my underdog Newegg) so the shipping to item worth ratio is a wee bit disheartening.

Athlon XP 3200 Barton Core
BFG Geforce 6800GT O/C 256MB
1GB PC3200
Windows XP Professional SP2
BenQ 24" FP241W LCD

"...$15 to ship it seemed pretty steep to me, I left a little depressed. The drive was only $62 from Directron.com...."

Yes, there's that problem these days. You can often ship to them a cheaper way, but then it takes longer to get to them and it's probably not insured against loss or damage.
Hence, it's a good idea to buy a hard drive from some place local that does have a limited time over the counter exchange arrangement for defective merchandise. If you have a problem with a drive, it often happens within the first short while.
The cost you pay locally is often a little less than what you pay online plus shipping, more likely if you get it from a smaller place that builds custom computers and has lots of computer parts.

Yeah, I will keep that tip in mind when it comes to buying an HDD.

I started buying my parts off the internet about 7 years ago- before custom builds were really popular, a hard drive was usually double retail, what you'd pay online. I live in Maine too- so there's not much of a difference in price between a Best Buy or Circuit City and Joe Schmoe's Computers around here, but the local benefit of returning the item is still there.

When I purchased it a couple weeks ago, I bought a whole system's worth of parts to build my HTPC with, all told- cpu, mobo, gpu, PSU, HDD, DVD-RW, Memory cost me $18 to have shipped FROM them, so it wasn't that offensive to me. Ugh, I just feel so scammed that I paid a mere $3 less to have ONE of those items sent back. Live and learn.

Thanks for keeping tabs on my thread, I'll be going down the street to the local corporate chain warehouse type deal next time, probably could have got a drive for $80 and way less heartbreak :)

If you hear back from me it will be because my RMA was rejected!

Take care,
Bill

Athlon XP 3200 Barton Core
BFG Geforce 6800GT O/C 256MB
1GB PC3200
Windows XP Professional SP2
BenQ 24" FP241W LCD

I never buy hard drives from the big box stores, but that might be an alternative if a size I wanted was on sale for enough of a discount, e.g. common in the xmas season.

"Joe Schmoe's Computers" is likely to have a better price - the more obscure it is, the more likely. If you're not sure where to shop, look in your yellow pages - many have web sites as well and if so the url is usually stated there.

I live in Canada and when I order something from other than a web site in Canada I sometimes get whacked. Many US web sites will not ship anything outside of the US a cheap way - you have no choice but to have it shipped via UPS or whatever.
E.g. I recently (in November) bought an Epox AD580XR mboard from Epox USA's Epox Store.
The mboard was about $80, a very good price at the time. It ended up costing me $146.11 CDN inc. shipping and tax, via UPS Standard, inc. $36.49 extra billed by UPS Canada after it crossed the border (including the 6% federal GST tax, we have no Provincial tax).
It was still worth that price because I could not get a similar mboard here with all the features it has for that money, but not by as much as I first thought.