Arch Linux

spupy

Member

Registered: 2009-08-12

Posts: 218

External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

I got this Western Digital Elements 1TB external usb hard disk. I split it into two partitions: 100GB for some backups, and the rest for stuff. The relevant lines in fstab are:

UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/wd ext3 user,defaults 0   0
UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/backup ext3 user,defaults 0   0

When I plug it, first udev mounts it as usb (in /mnt/usb1 and /mnt/usb2), so I have to unmount it from there, then click on the mount points from fstab to have it mounted there.
After a moment it starts churning - the sound that a disk makes when it moves the reading head a lot (not sure about the specifics, I may be wrong.) It even makes the sound when not mounted!
I tried lsof to check if somehow some process is accessing the hdd, but lsof seems to choke at some point and gives me nothing.
The internal disk of the laptop behaves normal.
I'm guessing there are some ways to tune a disk?

Last edited by spupy (2009-11-09 00:24:13)

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There are two types of people in this world - those who can count to 10 by using their fingers, and those who can count to 1023.

MadTux

Member

Registered: 2009-09-20

Posts: 553

Re: External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

With respect to tuning your disk, hdparm comes to my mind:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hdparm

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

Do you use KDE or GNOME?

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spupy

Member

Registered: 2009-08-12

Posts: 218

Re: External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

Do you use KDE or GNOME?

Neither. I use Fluxbox with gtk programs, Rox as file manager.
I'm trying some stuff with udev only, without fstab.

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There are two types of people in this world - those who can count to 10 by using their fingers, and those who can count to 1023.

spupy

Member

Registered: 2009-08-12

Posts: 218

Re: External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

I tried with turning HAL off and removing all udev rules. Still no luck. When I plug it in, even if not mounted, it first starts spinning. Then, after a couple of seconds, the churning sound starts (the one you hear when there is a lot of seeking and the head moves a lot.) Everything stops when I unplug the usb cable.
I will go make some tests with a windows PC, a gentoo laptop, and another disk of the same model, to check if the problems persists with my laptop or with the disk.
In the mean time - any idea?

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There are two types of people in this world - those who can count to 10 by using their fingers, and those who can count to 1023.

Cagnulein

Member

From: Modena, Italy

Registered: 2006-04-03

Posts: 260

Website

Re: External hdd makes churning sound when plugged in

dmesg says anything?

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