Hard Drive "Parking" Noises

Run hardware diagnostics (Apple Hardware Test—see page 101 of your User’s Manual) and get SMARTreporter so you can see if the drive is logging any problems.

Randall Schulz

iMac 20" Core Duo; MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I have the same drive (the 7200RPM 100GB) and I too hear the same noise. It sounds like a clunk or something dropping right?

MBP 2.0 two sticks of 512MB and 7200 100GB drive Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi there.
I dropped my MacBook Pro 15" Machine Model:MacBookPro1,1 Intel Core Duo CPU Speed: 2.16 GHz Memory:2 GB Bus Speed:667 MHz. It fell on his upper right corner, closed. Now, the HD makes a noise every time I open the lid or search something in it, it consists in 4 repetitions of a back and forth movements. I've spend my last 2 days and nights reading, but everyone has a different issue than mine.
Prior to that and still now, there is a sound like a wooden pebble bouncing in a plastic jar, this happens repeatedly and every time probably on the left lower corner or behind the keyboard somewhere.
And last but not least, everything in the web pages look sort of jammed .
My MBP is not even a month old, I'm a mac user: ibook , iMAC G4...6 years aprox. this one is very different, the letters are too small all over and it gets very hot, I can not use it as a laptop! it burns my skin. I'm also new to mac.com.
So far I revised with the disk utility the HD and it says no problem!
we live where there is not even a good computerservice store, but I'm willing to do it myself with your expert guidance. And import the parts.

How do I email my questions? this was the only way I found to even get out of here.
thanks.

I think it is normal, I have it on two MBP 2.16, comes from time to time with no reason (disabled HD sleep). Both MBP do exactly the same.

Hope that helps

I have the same drive and get the same noise. I have had my machine almost two months now and the drive has been pretty stellar so far. In my experience when a machine makes constant parking noises (like a skipping record) it when the drive is going bad, not when it's just occasional. If it's really bad you might want to take it in to an Apple Store for them to render an opinion. If its a bad drive they'll replace it (but be prepared to have your machine MIA for a week or two).

I've been looking at the inner of the MBP (pictures) and realized that the HD is actually on the right lower corner; but the sound comes from almost behind the power switch...is it maybe the optical drive? I'm so afraid of inserting a disk in it..although.. if it's broken, it has to be replaced anyway.
-How can I get the diagnose of what is going wrong.
-If I place my hand on the optical disk, I feel the wuchtttt,wu wu wru ** wuschtt tut ...for 3 times more...
-About the grabled text on the web, I tried text encoding:does not change.

sorry... on the left i meant!

Did you try a plain old disk verification?

In the old days, a “clunk” was often the result of trying to seek beyond the end of the drive based on bogus block numbers in the file system indexing structures. I don’t know if it’s possible now that the drives to LBA (logical block addressing) instead of the old CHS (cylinder-head-sector) addressing, but I suppose it’s a possibility.

Another thing to check is whether you’ve allowed the disk to spin down when it’s been idle long enough. If so, you could just be hearing the normal spin-up associated with that process. That’s controlled in the Energy Saver Preference Panel on the Sleep tab.

You could also try poking around in the various logs. Run the Console application (in the Utilities sub-folder of the Applications folder) to view the log files.


Randall Schulz

The SMARTreporter is pretty much useless, when my hard drive in the eMac started to go bad, the program still gave me green (that everything was doing great) even though the hard drive was acting very sluggish, the little SMARTreporter still said the hard drive was great, but the next time I reset the machine, it wouldn't boot up because the hard drive had messed itself up so badly. I think SMARTreporter has been created to give us a false sense of security. I don't think it does much, if anything at all.

eMac Mac OS X (10.4.6) MacBook 2.0 GHz ICD

I had a 15" MBP with the same problem and I can assure you that it was not the HD. The sound came from the top left (Magsafe) and not from the bottom left where the HD is located.

I now have a 17" and it is absolutely quiet.

One additional hint: The Mirror Widget cured the sound till the next power down. And it was no whining sound everybody is talking about. Kind like an application wanting attention, but only more quiet.

Hope this helps.

TheMacRepairman,

Did you have the drive replaced? Did I understand you correctly in that Apple said they would cover it?

If so,

What size drive did they replace it with?

Was it the same manufacturer?

Does the new drive exhibit the same problem?


Anybody else out there have any feedback on this issue and these questions?