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t_hah · Nov 18, 2004, 10:49 AM

My PowerBook has a second drive in it. The first one died a while ago, and now I have a 5400RPM IBM 40GB dirve in it. The following started a while ago. At first I was worried, but now I just learned to live with it. Everything seems stable and working, but I would like to understand what could be causing the following:

Once a while I get a loud beep sound for about a second. This is followed by a "clunk" type sound, which sound to me the same as the 3.5" floppy covers sound, when you opened them and then release. Everything works fine before and after these sounds, and it only occurs like one a week, sometimes once a month. It comes and goes.

Does anyone knwo what is causing this? I think it is hard drive related. After the "clunk" sound the drive seems a little busier, like as if the hard drive would be trying to catch up with tings. But that only last for about another second.

Thanks,

t

Xaositect · Nov 18, 2004, 05:49 PM

Possible thermal calibration clunk. Some IBM drives had an audible thunk when doing t-cal calls. Get the model number of your drive and search for info (Google is your friend!), if so go to IBM's site and get it replaced before it fails.

If your drive is not in the t-cal issue group, go to the S.M.A.R.T. reporting tools in OS X and see if any pre-fail or odd behavior warnings are in the logs.

t_hah · Nov 18, 2004, 09:06 PM

The drive number is: IBM 07N9482
I did not find much info in the t-call though. I have this spec page for the drive maybe you can tell if it has thermal calibration. I am guessing this would be part of the SMART sensing process, right? It does kind of make sense. I guess it probably happens, when my laptop gets really warm.
http://www.baber.com/drives/internal...9482_specs.htm

Thanks you,

t

nate_02 · Nov 18, 2004, 10:48 PM

That's the sound the first HD in my PB made before I sent it in and they said it was going bad.

I have the same thing happen on my PowerMac from time to time. I think it might be dying also so I installed another hard drive for backup. I know you can't install a second one on your PB, but it might be wise to run a backup somewhere.