Hi, Thanks for the information. I guess one of my hard drives is probably bad, or going bad. Part of the problem is that I have 4 of hard drives in the Mac Pro. I suppose I could leave only 1 at a time connected and then boot in firewire target mode from my laptop and see if the noise persists. That seems like it might take a while if I have to go through all 4 drives, connecting and disconnecting them, but perhaps there is no easy way to diagnosis the problem. Do I need to physically disconnect 3 of the 4, or can I unmount 3 of the 4 through software?
Thanks for the help, Gregg On 19 Jul 2011, at 6:05 PM, Macs R We wrote: > Optical drives aren't going to make noise except on startup or when you have > a disc in them. Besides, the noise a DVD drive makes includes a clear > "whirr." > > I'd run a backup of your drive IMMEDIATELY. Drives don't normally make > audible clicking in normal operation. > > SMART is a one-way indicator. If SMART says your drive is bad, it's bad. If > SMART says your drive is good, it means nothing. > > Here's a way to figure out what is going on: Start your Mac Pro in transfer > mode (hold down the T key at booting). Your drive will spin, but you are > guaranteed there will be no OS-generated disk activity in this mode. Then > listen to it for whatever period of time you need to wait before you hear the > clicking. If you still hear the clicking, replace the drive. > > Again, this is a one-way indicator, as even if the OS is causing the accesses > to the disk, the clicking noise itself on the access is still pathological. > > On Jul 19, 2011, at 2:15 PM, Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [E] wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have a Mac Pro that is making an odd clicking sound, which I assume is >> coming from either a hard drive or a DVD drive. It seems to make noise for >> a few seconds and then is quiet for about 10 minutes. This pattern (on for >> 2 seconds, off for 10 minutes) seems to repeat itself all day, but there is >> enough other noise in my office (and I often get distracted or I am out of >> the office at times), so I can't swear that it never takes a break. >> >> I am not a hardware expert, but it sounds sort of like a "normal" noise that >> might occur if the drive were trying to access something. The problem is >> that there is typically nothing going on at the time, at least nothing that >> I am intentionally doing. I looked at the Activity Monitor and did not see >> anything, though usually it has stopped making noise by the time I can bring >> that app to the front. >> >> I ran Disk Utility and did not notice anything out of the ordinary. I also >> ran SMART Utility and all the hard drives passed. Is there an easy way to >> check a DVD drive? >> >> Can anyone suggest a way to figure out what is causing this sound and how to >> correct it? I have had this Mac Pro for a few years and this just started a >> few weeks ago. I know that hard drives (and DVD drives) go bad, but if I'm >> going to replace one, I'd like to make sure I replace the one that is >> causing the problem. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Gregg _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
