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From: Marble on 4 May 2008 10:03

"Grumps" <nothere(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:685mbeF2o8jncU1(a)mid.individual.net...
> "kony" <spam(a)spam.com> wrote in message
> news:puup14l7ajck59dl9793l42r584b2ve262(a)4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 3 May 2008 19:55:24 +0100, "Grumps"
>> <nothere(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Hi
>>>
>>>I've just acquired an old Dell Inspiron 3700, 192MB RAM, 6GB HD,
>>>Win98SE.
>>>It all seems to run fine, battery life good for the age, keyboard
>>>had a few
>>>faulty keys but removing cleaning and replacing has done the trick.
>>>Problem is the whining noise from the hard disk (marked as
>>>DARA-206000,
>>>4200rpm, JAN-00). Also, when the disk is removed, just flipping it
>>>over you
>>>can hear something moving inside.
>>
>> You can hear a similar sound flipping many old hard drives
>> over, it doesn't necessarily mean anything.
>>
>> The whining is typically just old ball bearings, also not
>> necessarily a sign of a problem though if they wore down
>> enough it could cause one, or it could still develop some
>> other problem unrelated to the noise.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>It doesn't sound normal. I don't mean
>>>shaking it, just merely turning it over in your hand.
>>
>> It does seem that way but some drives do it due to design...
>> Run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics on it to
>> double-check it, although at it's present age it has already
>> met or exceeded it's expected lifespan so if longer term use
>> of the system and/or important data would be stored on the
>> drive, the most conservative solution would be to go ahead
>> and replace the drive - and it would be a fairly
>> significantn performance increase, those old ~ 6GB drives
>> were pretty slow compared to today's 5K4 RPM or higher
>> current capacity drives. To use a significantly larger
>> drive the system might need a bios update, you might check
>> on that if considering the change.
>>
>>
>>>Probably on its way out, unless this is a 'feature' of this old
>>>drive.
>>>But, to the whining noise. Can you lube the bearings, would this
>>>help?
>>>Ta.
>>>
>>
>> Agreed, the whining noise is very distracting in some cases
>> but unfortunately you cannot lube it, not reasonably at
>> least and it is not expected to do much good even if you
>> tore apart the bearing in order to access it... might damage
>> it instead and still at this point the whining tends to be
>> deformation in the bearings that lube won't fix. It's just
>> old and wearing like any mechanical part does.
>
> Thanks for the very comprehensive (as always) reply.
>
>

I've just put a travelstar 8Gb in a desktop. On this case it said that
rattling was to be expected. Not those exact words but I'm not taking
it out again.

Mark


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