Arch Linux

milomouse

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Registered: 2009-03-24

Posts: 940

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Hard Drive beeping ? (Seagate Momentus XT, Hybrid)

Recently purchased a new laptop and bought some upgrades for it. One of them was the "Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive". I installed the drive and installed Arch. Everything went fine. The drive itself appears to be working but every now and then the drive will make a beep like sound. It usually starts anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes after I boot, and happen again in intervals of anywhere from another 10 minutes apart to 30 seconds apart, in irregular interval patterns.

I googled the issue but get mixed results. Some say it's a failing hard drive, some say a part is "frozen" and it needs tapped a few times, while others say it's not recognized on a low-level (usually BIOs?). I'm sure there's more exotic theories but these are the most prevalent. I don't see it as being a failing drive as I just purchased it and I don't hear any loud or noticeable sounds as if it's having spin-up or spin-down problems or something, but then again the drive is so silent I can't hear it at all aside from the occasional beep. I don't see it as being "unrecognized" somehow as the drive IS recognized and BIOs does not complain, nor does Linux logs. I don't notice any performance issues but the sound is concerning, like an impending and abrupt consequence may result one day.

Has anyone else experienced this beeping or chirping hard drive phenom before, or have this drive in particular (that does not make beeps)? I hope it's not a "failure" issue and has something to do with the Hybrid nature of the drive itself (but have a feeling this is too optimistic). Thanks for reading, Archers.

Last edited by milomouse (2010-12-10 20:11:28)