The hard drive on my PC is very, very noisy. If it was a bike I’d say that the bearings were shot!

Thing is its not every time I boot it up, I’ll reboot it a few times and eventually it’ll run quietly.

Computer otherwise runs perfectly well, despite being 3 years old.

Is it worth opening it up and seeing if something is ‘loose’, or is the hard drive on its way out?

back everything up now.

<doom>

Back everything up now!

</doom>

Back up, buy new drive. Pray that the noisy harddrive doesn’t turn into a broken harddrive while you are trying to clone it. 😳

‘Tis all backed up. Nothing much other than photos and music on it anyway.

I wouldn’t know how to clone it anyway!

You cant open a hard drive without basically destroying it.
Do you mean theres a noise coming from inside the pc case?

If si yes open it up and see if you can narrow down where the noise us comming from, could be a broken fan or something.

Also download core twmp and see how hot you’re running, if youve gotw a cooling issue, the fans will be working at higher speed to try and keep temperatures down.

As others have said backup everything.
Are you sure the noise is coming from the Hard Disk and not a cooling fan?
Here’s a link to a hard disk noise site.
Hard Disk noises

Hard Disk Noises
Now we can close the internet. I’ve finally seen it all.

Right, case is off, all looks very technical apart from the copper pipes!

And of course having been laid on its side and moved around it starts up silently.

Guess I’ll have to run it caseless for a while and see if it plays up again.

Meanwhile I can enjoy that link to the dulcet tones of shrieking hard drives.

Drill a small hole in the casing and squirt WD40 inside….

if that doesn’t work, try expanding foam…

Usually hard discs make clunking or clicking sounds when faulty. Most PC noises tend to be fans, especially the smaller ones like CPU, chipset or video card fans. Often solved by popping a little cap under the sticker and adding a very very tiny dash of mineral oil. Though not all have the cap to oil them.

If it’s not doing it with the case off and is intermittent, there’s a chance this is a resonance noise. Something vibrating and amplified with the case on or vibrating through floor or desk. Tighten up screws etc and maybe sit the PC on something that will dampen vibrations. Carpet, or bit of cork. I do that with my NAS as 4 discs plus fans does vibrate through the shelf it’s on.

What he said ^^

Record it and post it up somewhere?

Be careful running it the case open.
I remember a few years ago reading about a kid in China who had the side off – it was a hot day and his sweaty leg brushed up against the wrong bits – it was the last time he did that! 😯

his sweaty leg brushed up against the wrong bits

Be honest, we’ve all been there.

Cougar – Moderator
his sweaty leg brushed up against the wrong bits
Be honest, we’ve all been there.

Speak for yourself! 😀

Hard drive on our laptop died – it was the bearings failing (which is also exactly what it sounded like). Luckily managed to get it backed up just before it gave up completely.

Tried to get it replaced under warranty but they said I shouldn’t have installed it by hitting it with a rock.

Oh, and then there’s just natural cooling fan noise in that the system may be getting hot so the fan(s) are cranking up to cool it down. Side off and it may be cool enough.

Also some systems do power up the fans to a high level when booted but then drop down later.

Another is high CPU load cranks up the fans, and some have fans on the graphics card and doing something graphically intensive cranks them up. My big PC will sound like an plane about to take off if I play a high spec game!