[kashchei]

I had this same problem last year and had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall all my software in order to fix it. I'm hoping to avoid that drastic a solution this time. The problem is that my hard drive makes rhythmic grinding noises at various times (no specific task ensures it will make the noise, but it doesn't do it without so action triggering it, i.e. a restart, opening a program, etc.) Everything seems to be working, but when I play music from iTunes there are noticeable glitches in the playback (static and moments of silence in the middle of a song). Obviously the hard drive trouble is making it difficult for iTunes to seamlessly playback music. I have run Disk Utility and Disk Warrior and neither of these programs has fixed the problem. Has anyone else had a similar problem, and, if so, what is the fix? Thanks in advance for whatever help you can provide.

[durandal343]

To me this sounds like more of a physical problem with the drive itself. Like perhaps something that software and formatting would not be able to fix. I would be sure to back up anything important on the drive in case of drive failure. As for solutions, if the drive were under warranty I would send it back. If not, reformatting might be an option to see if it will still make the same noises. This reminds me of old floppy disks that would make horrible noises before ultimately ceasing to work.

[mdawson]

You have not stated what your system is or the capacity of the drive. From what you have described it sounds as if it may be in your best interest to replace you hard drive. In my experienceand from what I have heard from others and seen in tech reviewsHitachi (previously IBM) and Seagate drives tend to be top-of-the-class in terms of performance and reliability. The simple fact is that hard drives are mechanical devices and regardless of how well they are designed they are, like any mechanical device, more prone to failure as a result of having moving parts.

[kashchei]

Thank you so much for your help. I don't know if this will help your diagnosis, but I have a PowerMac dual G4 processor (500 Mhz) with two internal 80 Gb hard drives (IBM) and I am running Tiger 10.4.2. I boot from one drive--which also has all my documents and applications on it--and the other has my music collection on it (52 Gb). As I said, I don't know if any of this information will help, but I'm desperate and I need all the help I can get!