You will find a few noises you never wish to hear. Right up there on the list is the funny noise from your hard drive. A scraping, grinding, or rattling noise means there is definitely a problem. Just before we examine what might be creating these noises, there is a first priority. For those who have no current backup, it's the first thing you should do, starting with the most critical data files first. When you act immediately when you first hear a strange noise, you have a really good chance of backing up before the hard drive fails.

Ok, now that we have a backup we can attempt to troubleshoot the root cause of this noise coming from your hard drive. Hard drives have a number of moving parts. The platters (where the data is saved and read from) rotate at tremendous speeds measured in RPMs. Even a slow hard drive these days moves at least 5400 revolutions per minute. The spindle that the platters rest on also spins at that rate. Then you have an armature that moves the device that reads the platters that constantly moves from the outside edge towards the center.

Any of these moving parts can wear out and begin making noises. You can't truly replace the interior parts due to cost and methods so your only option is to replace the hard drive. As I mentioned above, in case you immediately act when you hear the first strange noise, your hard disk may last a little longer. Quite a few new hard drives arrive with software that can easily transfer your entire drive contents to your new one. So it is a huge benefit of transferring the contents from a working drive to the new hard drive.

Moving the contents is a big time saver due to the fact you won't need to reinstall your operating system and any other computer programs. And there are many other pieces of data like your email, address book, Browser Favorites, and even passwords or network settings. You never realize how much stuff you could have on your personal computer until you lose it. Moving the complete system software and data is much easier and you won't lose anything.

If your hard drive doesn't come with software to clone the contents of your old hard disk to a new one, there are a couple good software programs that you can purchase to accomplish it. My first selection would be Acronis Migrate 7. It runs about $40 and can be used to make a backup image too. There are other programs out there but none of them as easy and bulletproof as Acronis.

If it comes to replacing your hard disk, there are certain aspects of your original hard drive that you want to examine to make certain the new one is similar. The majority of times you can increase the size and the speed of your new hard drive for much better performance and much more information storage. Lets say you had a 250 Gig SATA hard drive, that runs at 5400 RPM that is going to fail soon by the sound of it. You are able to easily get a 500 Gig SATA drive that operates at 7500 RPM (the faster it spins, the faster you can store and retrieve data) for around $65.

So you just doubled your storage capability and increased your access speed considerably. These new hard drives come with really uncomplicated instructions on replacing your old hard drive. If the software that can copy the entire hard drive comes with your particular choice it will have facts on exactly how to accomplish this, often step by step instructions. Acronis Migrate 7 also includes complete instructions and is designed for even a novice user. And Acronis has great support as well if you have any questions.

So in case you hear a hard drive noise, the time to act is right then and there. Immediately backup all your data first. Then as soon as you are able to, buy a replacement drive and install it. It will be a minor concern. But it you ignore the hard drive noise, I guarantee you will have a much bigger problem and probably lose some essential data.

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