Just got Windows 7, laptop making weird sound....

[rylesdavis]

I have a 2 year old HP dv6700 (I think that's what it is) and lately it's been making a weird buzzing/grinding sound and with research from google ingot reason to beleive it was either a - fan problem or b - hard drive about to fail. Well it was making this sound when I had vista too, I jus got 7 two days ago and the sound started about 3 weeks ago. Me bein the idiot I am, would hit my laptop and give it a good smack and the sound would stop, well I jus had it over at my friends and I tried the whole hit it and it shuts up technique and the whole laptop jus shutoff. Now I turn it on and it jusbtakes me to some system recovery screen where I can't do anything. What the he'll can I do and what type of person should i take it too? Did my hard drive finally fail? And if it fails once is it toast, and how much would a new laptop hard drive cost? Pls help I gotta get this problem fixed asap I need my laptop badly. Someone jusbhelp.

 

[ictdesk]

Dear Rylesdavis,

I would first give it a try to save your important data:
- download on another pc Ubuntu ISO ( www.ubuntu.org )
- burn the ISO on a cdrom with Deepburner ( www.deepburner.com )
- boot from the cdrom and make sure you select the Ubuntu LiveCD options (don't install Ubuntu, but run it from the cdrom)
- when it is started copy important data to a large USB stick and after that to another computer until you got it all

When your data is safe you can try to do a scan and recovery with other software(For example by booting with Hiren's BootCD ( www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd ) or Ultimate BootCD ( www.ultimatebootcd.com )) or you could try to reinstall Windows.

A new harddrive for a laptop costs about 55 EUR for 80++GB, but prices may be different depending on your location.

Good luck!
Kindest regards,
Marcel - www.ictdesk.net

 

[rylesdavis]

K well data isn't important because I have it all backed up, seeing as I backed everything up so I could do a clean install rather than upgrade from vista to windows 7. So how do I find out if it's a hard drive problem or not?I live in Canada btw

 

[ictdesk]

Hi Rylesdavis,

To find out if it is a harddrive problem, those boot-cd's have utilities to check the harddisk. I would boot from one of those cd's and then do a diagnostic test.

Or you could just run the setup again and reinstall, including a long format.

There might be other people who have suggestions for repairing boot record or working from a recovery console(in case it is not a hardware defect) but that might take too much time and effort.

Kindest regards,
Marcel

 

[mushroomboy]

I'm guessing you have a ballbearing fan that's about to fail or the hdd has bad heads. Now if the heads on the hdd are going to fail a program won't tell you this. It's due to the fact that you can't have a software program test the magnetism of the coils around the heads. TADA! Oh man that's good, I love being right. Anyways my suggestion would be (if you can feasibly do this) is swap the hdd with another one from somewhere. If things stop that was your problem, but if not? Well then it's probably a fan, and since you have a laptop you should only have like 2? 2 or 3? I don't know, I don't own one. =P But ballbearing fans are cheap, I would suggest getting a new one or send it back and have the manufacturer fix it.

 

[sclausnitzer]

Since you are trying to determine if the noise was a fan or the hard drive, you can pull the hard drive from the laptop, then run the computer awhile to see if the noise returns. Most laptops have easily accessible hard drives, Google/Bing your laptop make/model with "replace hard drive". For example: "Dell Inspiron 6000 replace hard drive".

If you have been repeatedly smacking the laptop while it was running, chances are the hard drive has been damaged, even if it was not the cause of the noise. Hard drives are easily damaged by such sudden jolts when running. As such, your problem could have started as the fan, but could now be both the fan and the hard drive.

 

[RogerR]

Did my hard drive finally fail? And if it fails once is it toast, and how much would a new laptop hard drive cost?

Highly likely - computers don't respond well to percussion adjustments. A new hard drive can be had for $50-75 and replacing it is pretty simple.

 

[mushroomboy]

Since you are trying to determine if the noise was a fan or the hard drive, you can pull the hard drive from the laptop, then run the computer awhile to see if the noise returns. Most laptops have easily accessible hard drives, Google/Bing your laptop make/model with "replace hard drive". For example: "Dell Inspiron 6000 replace hard drive".

If you have been repeatedly smacking the laptop while it was running, chances are the hard drive has been damaged, even if it was not the cause of the noise. Hard drives are easily damaged by such sudden jolts when running. As such, your problem could have started as the fan, but could now be both the fan and the hard drive.

First off, that's what I should have stated to do. Run without a hdd, as you can just let it sit in bios or something and if it's a bad fan it'll make the noise no matter what your doing. Seccond hard drives are created to withstand a couple g's of force, no really they are. So hitting it shouldn't damage the hard drive, **** I've dropped ipods down stairs with more force than he's probably hitting his computer. =P Though that doesn't mean they can withstand a lot of constant force, but a drop or short messup shouldn't hurt them. And some hdd's have special protection just for falling or short intervals of force, more so on new ones though.... So I'm really going to be suprised if his hitting damages the hard drive much, I've had to hit plenty of hard drives that had old motors and wouldn't spin up for me. =( Now I don't hit them hard, just enough to get it to start spinning and then it works like a charm =S damn things.

 

[RogerR]

Seccond hard drives are created to withstand a couple g's of force, no really they are.

So I'm really going to be suprised if his hitting damages the hard drive much, I've had to hit plenty of hard drives that had old motors and wouldn't spin up for me.

So ... how's that theory working out for ya?

You underestimate the g-forces involved in hitting.

 

[mushroomboy]

Not really, I don't, but this does.

Pneumatic device for boxing gloves to reduce head trauma - US Patent 7043763 Description

Medical research has shown that the brain structure cannot withstand G forces of more
  than 4 5 without exhibiting signs of neurological dysfunction. [B]The  impact of a 
professional boxer's top punch is estimated to generate a G  force of between 4 and 
4.5, which is enough to inflict serious damage to  the brain tissue.[/B] The device of the 
instant invention will be attached  inside the boxing glove at the impact area and

Now that's a trained boxer, do you really think an average human exerts the same!? Now I don't know if our OP here boxes but if he doesn't I'm really doubting he is doing anything too damaging.

Oh now look who's the dummy?

 

[Seraphinus]

i had the same problem with my old laptop, i think your hard drive is crashed, you dont need to punch hard to do damage too your harddrive, i punched it several times for 3 months, ans with a hdd checker it says 99% of sectors are damaged, so i needed a new harddrive,, thanks too the waranty it didn't cost me annything, but a new harddrive here in the netherlands is for 80 GB about 50 EUR, and for 320 GB about 120 EUR so no hard choice

 

[sclausnitzer]

While most hard drives are designed to withstand a limited amount of impact force, they are not designed to be repeatedly smacked around while running. In fact, it's only been in the last few years that laptop manufacturers have been offering upgrades to hard dives with "free-fall" or "drop" sensors.

It's the repeated impacts while the hard disk is running that worries me the most. If the read/write heads were in motion the sudden impact could cause the heads to touch/damage the media substrate It could also throw off the track alignment temporarily, causing format errors in the drive if the drive was writing data at the time of impact.

 

[mushroomboy]

i had the same problem with my old laptop, i think your hard drive is crashed, you dont need to punch hard to do damage too your harddrive, i punched it several times for 3 months, ans with a hdd checker it says 99% of sectors are damaged, so i needed a new harddrive,, thanks too the waranty it didn't cost me annything, but a new harddrive here in the netherlands is for 80 GB about 50 EUR, and for 320 GB about 120 EUR so no hard choice

That can also be caused by magnetic problems. I've seen a hard drive that was never punched fail in less than a month.... first it was a couple sectors.... then a couple more... then format issues and corruption... laggy... and BAM wouldn't format. SMART didn't even show that many bad sectors, but some were un-repairable and it glitched up.

Though if it is hit during read/write it can cause problems I'm just saying that I doubt the OP punches at 4-4.5G and at half punch maybe 1.5G? I could see alignment but even if the heads are bad and you have bad sectors there are too many problems to say punching. It's making a noise, and most of the time when you hear of a hard drive failing it makes a click... we all should know that deadly click as I've had 5 hdd's do it. =( Whenever I hear it it's like ice in my veins as I know the outcome. =(

Though I guess hard drives can make many odd noises, hahaha.... But what tips me off as to it probably not being his punching is that he punched because of it lol But I know it's never the best to physically "handle" (?) hardware like that, but I've seen some pretty wicked **** work. Though most of the time it won't, I'm still going to stick with the damage would be minimal. That's my my belief.