Denise Report post Posted January 15, 2011 This evening my computer has just started making a tapping kind of noise as I work and especially as I change documents or sites. Everything else seems normal. Is this OK, bad, BAD, or REAL BAD??? Anything I should check to see why it is doing it? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HellfireJack Report post Posted January 15, 2011 Where is this noise coming from? Back of tower? CD Drive? Speakers? If from the speakers are other sounds playing normal? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 15, 2011 Well, I guess it is OK. It was coming from the tower but I pulled it out from under the desk to hear better if it was coming from the back or the DVD drive at the front and it quit. ????? If it starts up again, I'll ask again. Jack, you make a great computer technician - fixing it from miles away with just a question!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
reddevil76 Report post Posted January 15, 2011 I have experienced this before, once on a Toshiba lap top. Once on a Fujitsu. On the Toshiba, it was the hard drive giving out. One the Fujitsu, it was the cooling fan. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 15, 2011 I was thinking it was more of what I would think of as a hard drive noise. At least it sounded like something that would tick as something was spinning and there was nothing in the CD drive. But it has stopped now. Why would it stop just with shifting the machine? Better make sure I have good backups done anyway I assume... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ferg Report post Posted January 15, 2011 I was thinking it was more of what I would think of as a hard drive noise. At least it sounded like something that would tick as something was spinning and there was nothing in the CD drive. But it has stopped now. Why would it stop just with shifting the machine? Better make sure I have good backups done anyway I assume... I have been "messing" with computers for a long time. Your noise has a 90% chance of being the hard drive. If you aren't backed up, DO IT and go get another hard drive. ferg Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 15, 2011 I back up "my documents" but that doesn't back up my Outlook Express e-mail address book. Where do I go to find that? (I know I have been told before but I don't remember.) Also, if I have to replace the hard drive, that means all the programs are gone too, right? How do I back up the programs? We have an external hard drive that looks to have more capacity than our computer so do I just copy "My computer" to the external hard drive? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
leatheroo Report post Posted January 15, 2011 Denise there a couple of programs that completely clone or ghost your harddrive to an external harddrive...Norton Ghost or Acronis. I use acronis and it does a backup every night. If my hard drive dies, i can install a new HD and then just copy everything from the backup....Acronis makes a complete clone....therefore there is no need to reinstall anything....you would be up and running as if nothing had happened! I started using this because hard drives just dont seem to last very long and i got sick of reinstalling everything. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 15, 2011 So you store your information online with them? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ferg Report post Posted January 15, 2011 So you store your information online with them? I assume you are on a Windows machine, I know there are automatic backup programs for you. Some programs charge you for the storage, I personally don't like that method. I have a two terrabyte external hard drive for my back up. Automatically backs up once every hour if anything has changed, if nothing changed in that hour it does nothing. I can restore my entire hard drive to another if the original dies. I usually get about 3 to 5 years out of my hard drives but that can change as with anything electroinc. The "back up drive" records everything. When it gets full the oldest info is discarded so the new info has somewhere to go. ferg Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gtwister09 Report post Posted January 16, 2011 Denise, A backup of the hard disk is one thing to restore files but it doesn't always take care of the operating system, registry and so forth. Leatheroo has given some great advice about Acronis True-Image. It makes a duplicate image of the hard drive that included the boot partition, registry and all files at the point in time snapshot. I have been using this since the mid 90's for all my machines including my Windows servers and my Linux server, Sure makes life nice to install a new drive and boot Acronis up. Select the image and wham.... I am exactly where I was at when I made the image (generally less than 45 minutes start to finish). I don't have to install an OS, all the programs and the backups. I use various methods of these OS images, some backups, replication, consolidations, synchronization with external drives, offsite storage, versioning and a couple of other methods to keep data and OS's available as quickly as possible. A combination of backup and image creation would serve you well. Regards, Ben Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hivemind Report post Posted January 25, 2011 Denise, Many things can cause a computer to make a clicking noise. It is NOT necessarily your hard drive. You could have something in a fan, a wonky cd drive, or a few other things. Best to make sure before you go through all the trouble of a new hard drive. Go to your Control Panel, into Administrative Tools, into Event Viewer, then click on the "System" entry on the list on the left side. Do you see a lot of errors (X in a red circle) with a "Source" of Disk? If you do, it's time to back up and get a new HDD. If you don't, look around that log a bit and tell me what you do see in the way of errors. There are many things that will show up as errors that are not particularly worrisome, and a few that are. Just give me a general idea of the amount of particular errors (not Warnings or Information entries) and I can help more. Don't worry, I'm a professional. I do this every day, all day. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 25, 2011 Hivemind, It hasn't made a clicking sound since that day, but it seems to be running a little louder than it did before, and not just because a fan is running. I know that noise. I did what you said. Not a lot of red Xs, but a few. None from the day the clicking happened. Lots if Information lines and some yellow warnings. Red Xs Dcom three times of which twice were today, (Interesting, at one point today my keyboard quit connecting to the computer. I turned it off and on again and things worked. This has happened before. Connect to this????) WPDMTP Driver twice, Service Control Manager twice W32Time 22 times, all on the 7th of January over a 5 1/2 hour period. I don't recall problems with the computer that day. Warnings - Looks like close to 1/2 of the 2163 events are a warning reading disk all on December 31 at 4:47:55 pm. Considering we were away over that time period and not only was the computer off, but unplugged, I have no idea why that is like that. 15 other warnings - 6 of which are disk, 8 are Tcpip, one (December 31, 4:47:56) is ntfs. Thanks to everyone who has answered. I do have good backups done but haven't sprung for the image creation - yet... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hivemind Report post Posted January 26, 2011 The errors are nothing to be concerned about, for example, the W32Time one is just Windows trying to sync it's clock with an external time server. On 7 January was your internet down or off for a while? That would easily explain that one. No need to answer, since we don't need to chase it down. Just food for thought to explain that one error. The others are all similarly unimportant, especially in the low frequencies you're describing. If your event log was full of DCOM errors, we might want to chase that, but just a few is nothing to worry about. I'd say that you're not about to lose your hard drive. Most likely there was something in a fan (piece of thread or whatever) or your CD Rom drive had a hiccup and wouldn't eject for some reason. Happens sometimes. Does your CD Rom drive eject immediately when you push the button on the front? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Denise Report post Posted January 26, 2011 Does your CD Rom drive eject immediately when you push the button on the front? Yes. Not a problem there. Good chance the internet was down on January 7th. That happens here not uncommonly. I will keep the back ups current and I know it is time to blow out the computer again, so will put that on the list. Thanks again for your help, everyone! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
