My computer has a demon!!

shortguy

It's a working title
Joined
Mar 27, 2004
Messages
2,913
Location
the hook
After coming back from a long weekend out, I turned on my computer. Much to my surprise, rather than booting, it began to make strange sounds; there were a high pitched wail and a speedy clicking sound. Both seemed to be coming from the case. The monitor only showed a blinking cursor in the top left corner. After letting it sit a few minutes, the sounds went away and it worked.

Any ideas as to what caused it?
 
It sounds to me like your hard drive is on its last legs. If I were you I would make sure to back up anything important just in case.
 
I 100% agree with Zakharov.

The clicking sound was the head of the drive reseting itself over and over. The high pitch wail was the platter of the drive spinning.
 
aargh. Not good. Anything specific I should be aware of in looking for a new hard drive? (compatability issues, etc)
 
It depends on your mobo connection. You need to check whether the hard drive is IDE or SATA. The best way to do this is probably to check your bios settings when you boot up.

I think that is the only compatibility issue you may have. The choice of a new drive is otherwise dependent on what size you need and how much you are willing to spend.

What size is your current drive and are you close to filling it?
 
I believe it's 40 gb, and a little over half filled. Probably not anything more is needed.

Actually, I'm afraid to turn the computer off again. As to determining wheter the hard drive is IDE or SATA, the computer is about 3 years old, if that helps.

EDIT: After looking at the purchase order, I see that the hard drive is 40gb and ATA.
 
Back
Top Bottom