[AlienBogeyAgain]

iMac DV400, latest Jaguar, 384 ram, 6 gigs free......

Once before it's made this noise, about a month ago, I ignored it and it went away.....

Today the iMac started making an occasional loud "clicking" or "knocking" sound, don't know how else to describe it, about 2-3 beats per second, does it for 4-9 seconds, then stops for a while, then does it again. It will do it regardless of whether a disc in in the optical drive or not.

It will do it while the computer is not being touched, and while in use. I've always suspected it to be hard drive related, don't know any other moving parts but the optical drive.

I guess I'm assuming that it isn't a software generated noise.

Anyway, concurrent with it's occurence today the machine has frozen a few times. I put in my Jaguar CD to run Disk Utilites, but after booting from it it could not find the hard drive, no mounted volumes other than the CD in the optical. I ran booted from an old Norton Utilites 5.0 CD, it's "Show Missing Disks" command also failed to find the hard drive.

Attempting to reboot from the hard drive has resulted in a flashing folder with question mark, a flashing blue globe that looks like the System Preferences Network icon and, twice a normal boot.

After the normal boots, while frantically trying to get in a backup to my laptop, the desktop has disappeared, the knocking sound reappeared and the machine basically stopped working.

Right now I have it off, I'm going to light candles around it and try aromatherapy or something, deathly afraid my hard drive is on it's deathbed and I haven't backed up in months.......

Update: This is getting more bizarre. I had just posted this when my son came in from his room. His identical iMac 400 just started making the same knocking noise and now only shows a flashing folder with a question mark when it starts up! The two iMacs are physically NOT connected, but both are linked via AirPort cards and a second generation AirPort. File sharing is enabled on both machines, I was going to try to back up my hard drive to his when mine died. His is running the latest Jaguar, also.

With hands on the case of his machine it seems you can feel vibration associated with the knocking noise.

So, now I'm REALLY confused, if it's a physical problem how could it affect his machine, too, if software how could it.....?

I'm starting to be afraid that it will spread to the iBook I'm typing on, which is connected to the AirPort via an ethernet cable.

[ 12-16-2002: Message edited by: AlienBogeyAgain ]

[Nobody]

I hate to tell you this, but it probably is the hard drive. There have been numerous problems with the HD installed in the iMacs, chief among them failure. The clicking sound you heard is usually associated with a hard drive failure. The best thing to do right now, if your data is incredibly valuable, is send your HD to a data recovery specialist (Ads for such agencies can be found in the back of Macworld). If it's not, just buy another HD and start over.

-Mike

[AlienBogeyAgain]

MGosset,

Thanks for the reply - did you see my update? What do you think, just an incredible coincidence that the same hour that my iMac hard drive decides to die my son's does the same thing?

Who have I pissed off lately? images/icons/confused.gif

[The_Tick]

yep, hard drive.

check out outpost.com, pricewatch.com, and the ever faithful apple.com and bestbuy.com for new ones

[StanleyG]

Yeah the sound you are hearing sounds like a "bad head" on your hard drive. If you can get it out of the machine and fire it up, you will a slightly metalic hammering (and a quieter clicking between the loud sound) as the head bounces off the platter and rebounds against it again.

Bad Stuff... Don't run it that way anymore until you are ready to try a backup, as it is pounding the life (and data) out of the hard disk platters.

If you really need to try to get the data off the drive, and it won't boot up anymore, there are a few things you can try...

1. Pay several thousand bucks to a recovery service that probably won't give you ANY guarantee that they can recover anything...

2. Try it yourself. How?

First off, go here - http://www.midwayisd...elp/200ways.pdf and download the PDF file that shows the results of a survey of PC techs most sucessful ways to revive a hard drive. Some good ideas there...

The methods I've used that worked (well enough to get the data off) are:

Connect the hard drive to another computer (with the cover off) by the power and IDE cables, so that you can keep it outside the machine.
When you fire the machine up, hold the drive in your hand, (cables facing away from you) and give it a quick, but gentle 1/4 turn clockwise by flicking your wrist. Do it as you hear the drive start to spin up and it might work for you. If the head disengages and starts clicking, power down and try it again a few times.

If that doesn't work, it's time for more drastic measures...
Put the hard drive in a air tight non-static bag and freeze it overnight. Then, pull it out and immediately attach it and fire it up. Get everything off the drive as fast as you can before it warms up.

If those don't work, the last choice is to put the drive in the palm of your hand, (with the top against your hand) and give it a good hard slam down on a sturdy table. (It actually has worked for me!) Then get it connected and backup as fast as you can, because the drive will probably be shot after one or two of these "high G-force persuaders"

You may find one or two other good ideas in the PDF mentioned above, but the "flick, freeze, and slam" have been the only ones that have worked for me on a bad head hard drive.

Wish I had better ideas, but good luck and I hope you can get your data back...

[Newstetter]

In reply to:

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Put the hard drive in a air tight non-static bag and freeze it overnight. Then, pull it out and immediately attach it and fire it up. Get everything off the drive as fast as you can before it warms up.

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Then you can pop it in a preheated 350 oven for 30 minutes and season with grated parmesan cheese and a rich marinara sauce.