I hate to disagree with Ultra, but as they say, YMMV...

If two drives in the same system have the same noise, I'd look a lot deeper...
I'd try BOTH drives in other systems to see what happened...

Do you ever use IBM ZAP on drives to be sure the boot sectors are clean?
(Disclaimer: ZAP make ALL data on a physical spindle inaccessible...)

I have stopped (cancelled) installs of WinXP-PRO and then had boot failures
and found the drive un-installable when trying to start over... ZAP clears that
right up...  In this particular case (on a different drive) I got a
"Verifying DMI Pool Data" freeze...  (First and only time I have seen that error.)
(One RAM stick failed shortly after that, so I can not say that was unrelated....)

FWIIW, I installed a program on a Maxtor HD that was less than a year old.
The hard drive made all sorts of banging noises. I uninstalled the program,
(maybe from safe mode or some how, to have quiet access to the drive, if
possible...), and have been using the drive in various machines ever since.
It is 8.4G, was purchased for 329.99 on 5/01/98 (times change!) It works great,
and is in perfect condition.
(I hate it when I say things like that, because it "guaranties" tomorrow it will crash...)

                                 Rick Glazier

BCC: [log in to unmask]

From: "Ultra" <[log in to unmask]>

> You are Exactly right, this is 100% hard drive failure, nothing else.
> High-end SCSI drive may make noise when running (15000rpm and some old
> 10000rpm drives), but popping noise is always a point to physical failure.

> From: "Mike Whalen - The Computer Valet" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Well, I started to install Win98 on it and, during formatting, the
> > HDD started making loud clanging noise like the arm inside was
> > popping back and forth.
> >
> > Now, I know their OLD hard drive made these noises and they bought a
> > new hard drive. But when they gave me the system, the new hard drive
> > was supposed to be already installed.
> >
> > I have trouble believing that.
> >
> > So, just a reality check: These noises can't be caused by anything
> > other than a physically damaged hard drive, right

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