OT Laptop HD question

[Philip Pemberton]

In message <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502101022280.9620 at panix3.panix.com>
          John Lawson <jpl15 at panix.com> wrote:

>    All three of the HDs in my previous and current laptops, a Toshiba 
> 420CDT, an IBM Thinkpad A21m, and this Dell Latitude - have exhibited a 
> sporadic 'snapping' behavior that is quite energetic (and alarming!). 
> There is some combination of Windows launched programs that results in, 
> occasionally, a small amount of disk activity and then a very loud snap, 
> or bang, that can sometimes be felt in the desk the machine is sitting on.

Sounds like a thermal recalibration cycle. Usually the drive seeks all the
way to the inside of the disk platter, then reads a few (seemingly random)
sectors and seeks all the way back out again, often hitting the plastic
(maybe synthetic rubber, depends on the drive manufacturer) endstop in the
process. The ka-thunk is probably the actuator servo hitting the endstop.
As long as the manufacturer's HDD diagnostic tool says the drive's OK, I
wouldn't worry about it.

Later.
-- 
Phil.                              | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk              | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/          | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... Me, indecisive?  I don't think I am, do you?