Hard drive troubles

[Margalis]

I am a computer software guy, not hardware inclined at all. So I noticed the bay where my 2 hard drives live has been getting REALLY hot, as are the hard drive cases. My second hard drive is not even in use most of the time but it is getting very hot as well.

After using my computer for a while it will crash, and then when it tries to come back on I will often get "Could not load OS" or some other error indicating a problem with the boot media.

I also hear a high pitched whine coming from my computer that I haven't heard before.

Is it possible that one of my drives is really overheating for some reason? Anyone have any insight? I don't have a general heat problem in my computer, just in the hard drive bays.

[schild]

How far is the graphics card from the harddrives? Is it a beefy card? Does it have a fan that isn't running? What kind of case do you have. If it's generic - what's the location of the harddrives - in front, over or to the side of the processor. Does the processor have a fan? Do you have a fan blowing outwards from in front of the harddrives out of the case?

This is information that would be helpful for diagnosing your problem.

Edit: You know what, just take a picture of the situation. Also, how old are the harddrives and where is the high-pitched noise coming from - specifically?

[geldonyetich]

I'll reinforce here that heat from other components could certainly be the problem.

There are actual hard drive coolers you can buy.

Are you sure that's a new high pitched noise and not just one you didn't notice before?  I'll often pick up fun phantom symptoms like that just from looking really hard.   If that's really a new noise and it's coming from the hard drive, it could indeed be something wrong with it.   If you're lucky, it's external.. maybe the bolts securing it to the case are too tight or not tight enough.   If it's an internal source of heat, probably nothing short of replacing the unit would prove a solution.   (Though you could give a hard drive cooler a try... they're cheap.)

[JMQ]

Hard drives never get better, and they almost always get worse.  You have been warned.

I had an HD cooler for while.  The HD outlasted it.  It shore does seem like HDs get hotter and hotter nowadays.  Just make sure they have plenty of space around them, and spend your money on case fans.

[Margalis]

I am sure it is not heat from other components. Nothing gets hot except for the drives and the metal mount they are in.

I took out one of the drives and I don't see any problems. So I am thinking maybe the two drives were just too close together, or there is an issue with the one I took out, or I just have problems using 2 drives at once.

I have a pretty generic case, the 2 drives are in the front bottom away from everything else. (Underneath the front CD drives, etc) It's definitely localized to the hard drive area.

[Murgos]

Modern high density hard drives can get VERY hot. ~180 deg F hot.  If you have space in your box try and leave an open drive bay in between them.

Heat makes metal expand, heat is also very bad for magnetism (adds lots of energy to a system and magnetism relies on molecules being very stable).

I have 4 Hard Drives in my box, I've had to get a bit inventive to make sure they all get enough cooling.

[JMQ]

What Mugos said.  Some cases will give you two completely different places where you can mount HDs.  You might also think about getting an adapter kit and mounting one of them in a 5.25" bay.  Having two newish HDs right next to each other is probably a Bad Idea.

[LordDax]

I was having an HDD problem and found an interesting solution. My orginal 70gb HDD is still in the rack, but my smaller media 16gb HDD is mounted vertically below it in an addon HDD rack system that you can find at most good PC stores. The orginal still has all its cooling area and the now vertical one has all teh open space between the sides of the case. Before buying any high priced cooling units see if there is anotehr way to mount your HDD, it might help just a little bit and save you a couple bucks.

[Bunk]

All of the advice above is quite good, but i will add one thing:

Make backups now.  Right this moment.  Now.

You might get another two years out of the drive, you might get two bootups.