Vista, and Windows 7 puts drives to sleep when they aren't being 
used, and then wakes them up again when you access them. You can't 
disable this. This accounts for the delay, which is a common end user 
complaint. The buzz could be from anything, even something else in 
your case. I would run WD diagnostics, you would have to do this 
before RMAing it anyway, and if it passes that then the drive is OK.

Mark Rode


At 09:53 PM 6/4/2010, you wrote:
>I have a Western Digital 1TB "black" hard drive that I have used for over a
>year without problems. More recently, it has started to make a sort of
>"buzz" sound as if it is going through a head calibration process. It seems
>that this started with my going with Windows 7 pro 64bit, but I am not
>certain that it started right after that. SMART status shows all ok, all
>diagnostics show no problem to be present. However, when the "buzz" starts,
>there is a delay before being able to access info on the drive. This lasts a
>few seconds. Has anyone else run into this? I am planning to reformat the
>drive to see if it fixes the situation, or perhaps I should replace the
>drive. Any input of you experience would be appreciated.
>Peter Shkabara

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