clunk clunk

My hard disk starts making loud clunking noises. If I then run a check,
Norton finds a tracking cookie.

I'm wondering if I should replace the hard disk before it dies, or
something.

This happens over and over. I wish I knew what website is adding the
tracking cookie. -if it is a website...

It could be that by the time my hard disk starts clunking again, it is just
coincidental that the tracking cookie is back. Maybe I should do daily
virus scans.

"Quiet Neighbor" <conspiracy@internet.net> wrote in message
news:L-6dnaOJ87WYaQTVnZ2dnUVZ_t3inZ2d@comcast.com...
> My hard disk starts making loud clunking noises. If I then run a check,
> Norton finds a tracking cookie.
>
> I'm wondering if I should replace the hard disk before it dies, or
> something.
>
> This happens over and over. I wish I knew what website is adding the
> tracking cookie. -if it is a website...
>
> It could be that by the time my hard disk starts clunking again, it is
> just coincidental that the tracking cookie is back. Maybe I should do
> daily virus scans.

If your hard drive is making loud clunking noises then it's probably going
to fail. I would have it replaced as soon as possible.

Quiet Neighbor wrote:
> My hard disk starts making loud clunking noises. If I then run a check,
> Norton finds a tracking cookie.
>
> I'm wondering if I should replace the hard disk before it dies, or
> something.
>
> This happens over and over. I wish I knew what website is adding the
> tracking cookie. -if it is a website...
>
> It could be that by the time my hard disk starts clunking again, it is just
> coincidental that the tracking cookie is back. Maybe I should do daily
> virus scans.


I used to have an old Quantum Fireball (hard disk) that made a loud
clunk occasionally. That was before it died. You should probably
replace the hard disk, and moreover make sure you have backups of
everything.

A tracking cookie can not cause a loud clunk.

In theory it's possible for a virus to cause a clunk by powering up and
powering down a disk via the power saving controls, but I don't know of
any virus that does that.

The last 2 hard disks I have had go bad after being unable to read
from some disk blocks. Unfortunately the smartmontools didn't catch
those early.

I have generally used the smartmontools with every system (OpenBSD,
NetBSD, and Linux), and it appears they even run in Windows:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Hard disks have come with internal diagnostic routines, internal
temperature sensors, and the ability to judge their own age via the
SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) standard for
years, but some operating systems don't come with free tools that you
can use to read this information.


George

If you look in control panel and find out what brand and model your
hard drive is, there are usually free tools the manufacturer has to
diagnose problems with your drive. One of my drives was under
warranty, and I got a replacement by Maxtor (now Seagate).
Chkdsk is a good utility although to read what it does you have to use
event viewer in administrative tools to read what the "F#*$" it says
before your pc boots up. Why the Micropervs did that I'll never know.

"Quiet Neighbor" <conspiracy@internet.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:L-6dnaOJ87WYaQTVnZ2dnUVZ_t3inZ2d@comcast.com...
> My hard disk starts making loud clunking noises. If I then run a check,
> Norton finds a tracking cookie.
>
> I'm wondering if I should replace the hard disk before it dies, or
> something.
>
> This happens over and over. I wish I knew what website is adding the
> tracking cookie. -if it is a website...
>
> It could be that by the time my hard disk starts clunking again, it is
> just coincidental that the tracking cookie is back. Maybe I should do
> daily virus scans.
>

I had this noise with my samsung hd. It derived from turning the power of
the computer while the hd was running (closing all the files) and the
computer was about to shut down. The clunking noiose wouldn´t go away. But
someday i had to reinstall my win and i made a hard format (not the fast
one) of that hd and the sound went away.

I'll take your experience with the Quantum seriously, as that sounds much
like my drive problem.

Sounds like good advice, but it is a fair project to copy everything into a
replacement drive. I worry that I may stupidly copy the new drive into the
old one....

Hey Erik,

No warrantee here. I got the drive on eBay a couple of years ago.

CHKDSK flashing the results on the screen is an incredibly stupid microsoft
*feature* (haha). I once waited with my digital camera and took a photo of
the results to see what it said. The photo wasn't pretty, but I could read
it.