Vostro Beep and HD Parking?

[Andy Mack]

Hiya this has been happening for a while and is getting on my nerves now.

Every few seconds or so I get a beep from the hard drive and I can hear it what I'm assuming is parking.

Having read a fair few posts from various places the parking is either fatal or maybe not, some say it is, some say the disk was designed that way.

Has anyone here had a similar problem with their laptop?

Thanks
Andy

[Husse]

The first thing to do - and immediately - is to back up your data! Back up!
If it is the hard drive that makes the noice it's failing - or the disk controller
See if you can borrow another disk (with any Linux or a Windows for that model) and put it in there shortly to check if the behavior is disk or computer specific

[MagnusB]

If you have a laptop use:

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sudo hdparm -B254 /dev/sda

Change the /dev/sda with what your harddrive is called. This will hopefully reduce the load on the hard drive, but your battery life might suffer from it..

[Husse]

I agree to that hdparm but if the behavior has "just started" I still feel it's a failing disk
Once you've backed up, you could try the hdparm solution.
Be warned hdparm can destroy your disk used the wrong way - very powerful command

[MagnusB]

I just know that due to some ACPI stuff Linux on laptops often causes quite "aggressive" cycles to the harddrive, and it is quite audible. You can also look at this to see if the disk is about to fail. You need smartmontools installed though:

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sudo aptitude install smartmontools

[Husse]

Yes there's a thread somewhere in the forum with the title Ubuntu destroys laptop hard drives or something like it.
But he/she writes

Every few seconds or so

I don't have a lappy with Mint (well - one that's really crappy ) so ...

[Andy Mack]

i used the hdparm and it's stopped beeping but when booting up and loading apps the drive makes a different noise, more like a hd noise now.

When you say parm can destroy you drive if used incorrectly, how should i use it?

After reading what seems to be a million topics on this on dell forums it is the same (problem?) with xp too, and a program can be used to change that thing to 254 to stop the beeping and other thing.

I dont think it is a failing drive as i only got this lappy in january and many other people who mentioned this bought there's recently too.
It seems from what they are saying that the drive is meant to do this beeping crap but that is just hearsay.

Thanks anyways though, if the drive does fail i'll get dell to replace it, no probs with losing data, save to dvd's most weeks.

Much appreciated.

[Husse]

the advice on hdparm you got from MagnusB is ok, but you can actually destroy your disk with wrong parameters.
Adjust and live with it...
It's just that I got a bit worried when it happened so often...

[MagnusB]

i used the hdparm and it's stopped beeping but when booting up and loading apps the drive makes a different noise, more like a hd noise now.

When you say parm can destroy you drive if used incorrectly, how should i use it?

After reading what seems to be a million topics on this on dell forums it is the same (problem?) with xp too, and a program can be used to change that thing to 254 to stop the beeping and other thing.

I dont think it is a failing drive as i only got this lappy in january and many other people who mentioned this bought there's recently too.
It seems from what they are saying that the drive is meant to do this beeping crap but that is just hearsay.

Thanks anyways though, if the drive does fail i'll get dell to replace it, no probs with losing data, save to dvd's most weeks.

Much appreciated.

I get an aggressive cycle when I shut down, other than that it works pretty ok. I also run -B254 each time I boot up, but that might just be me being paranoid. And hdparm is quite a powerful tool, so careless use could be harmful, especially if you don't know what you are doing. But changing the APM settings should be safe, and if you are not using HP, and actually have a BIOS you can do something with, you can change it in BIOS as well (not all though).

[Andy Mack]

Can I run sudo hdparm -B254 /dev/sda2 automatically on boot or not? If so, how?

[MagnusB]

I guess so, I have never really tried to figure that out...

[ed@Mint]

Hi,

I got the same problem with a Dell Vostro 1500...
This problem is even worse under windows vista, constant "clicking noise" like every second...

With vista, i use a small utility called "notebook hadware control" which boots with the OS and acts quite like hdparm since you set up an option to 254.
With linux i launch the "sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda" command after each boot.
Before installing Mint, i had a Kubuntu 7.10, and after extensive search, i found a topic somewhere to make the procedure automatic at system boot (+ some stuff to change in some configuration files), but i didn't bookmark the page & i can't remember the thing (hit me for this)

This is kinda useless post but i just wanted to let you know that there is a solution somewhere

While searching for info about this, i kinda understood that this ain't no critical problem, but HDDs have a limited "head parking" cycle number (like 600,000 or so), so this might shorten the HDD's lifetime...
Next, week, i'm in holidays for two weeks, so i'm considering calling dell for them to come fix this (since i have a j+1 1-year long guarantee, laptop bought in january)...
I just hope the dell guy will be able to ghost my disk or something since i just formatted the whole thing less than a month ago and reinstalled everything (and, believe me, installing vista, drivers, and apps takes almost forever...)
The "good" thing is that i now keep track of every "hack" i make on linux in text files so that i can find them back if ever i had to reinstall it completely...

Let the first who finds back the post i'm talking about post it here... thanx for that

good luck
ed

[ed@Mint]

Hi folks,

I still haven't found that link back
However, i wanted to tell you what i just discovered in order to get better comprehension of the problem.
I have just installed the new service pack 1 for windows vista and it seems that the "clicking noise" is gone without using the utility i was talking about anymore.
Looks like the problems with this hard disk are rather software than hardware... (for info, the exact model is : ST9160821AS i think it is Hitachi)

I know we're talking about linux here, but i think it is interresting to see how different OSes handle the same hardware...
So, to this point, i see no other solution to using the hdparm command for linux

cya
ed