VOGONS


First post, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Check out this beauty. 😳

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gbzfvbly0jmmgty/201 … 134805.mp4?dl=0

HOLY crap. I was actually kind of stunned when it first spun up. It's LOUD; I can hear it with the case closed from the other room. Sounds like a bag of microwave popcorn going nuts.

Surprisingly it "works", it took a complete non-quick format with no errors and happily boots & copies files. I have no idea how this could be.

I paid four whole dollars for this thing too. 😠

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 1 of 17, by keenmaster486

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Sounds like it's about to fail 🤣 *griiiiiind CLICK* *grind grind CLICK*

Well, the obvious solution here is to put noise absorbing foam all over the computer and then pretend the problem doesn't exist.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 2 of 17, by SW-SSG

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Yep... it's (almost) dead, Jim.

Those "clunk" sounds are the read/write heads being parked, as part of continuous retries of whatever read/write operations are going on in the video. Probably the heads are no longer aligned 100% properly anymore with the platter surface(s) (e.g. good luck fixing it).

Reply 3 of 17, by gca

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

That is one sick drive. Even drives subjected to some extreme testing (I used to test disk arrays and some tests caused some very worrying noises) didn't sound that bad.

I hope you don't have anything important on there.

Reply 5 of 17, by realnc

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I had a drive that started doing that about 20 years ago. I demoted it to store my por... I mean unimportant, temporary crap, expecting it to die any moment now.

It lasted for another 3 years 🤣

Reply 6 of 17, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I agree with the other users, that hard disk drive doesn't sound too healthy. 🙁
I'm speaking under correction, but maybe the manufacturer's tools may help to "fix" the drive (low-level format, bad sector marking, etc.).
To me, it sounds like the drive is either loosing track/is misaligned or is set for an extreme form of power-saving
(since the heads repeatingly go to park position; however, there's no spin-down sound which contradicts this assumption).

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 7 of 17, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Haha, don't worry guys, it's going in the bin. It wasn't "my" drive with anything on it, just one I picked up at a garage sale for a spare (hence the $4 price tag.) I was just so shocked by the noise I had to record it for posterity.

The head parking theory sounds reasonable, but it's awfully noisy even when it's not doing that... I still can't believe it formatted and boots. I even managed to get FreeDOS installed onto it. You can copy a file right through a "clunk" and it'll still work.

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 10 of 17, by Windows9566

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

i have that same maxtor drive in my macintosh performa 6200cd, it only shows 8gb but it works though

R5 5600X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3060 TI, Win11
P3 600, 256 MB RAM, nVidia Riva TNT2 M64, SB Vibra 16S, Win98
PMMX 200, 128 MB RAM, S3 Virge DX, Yamaha YMF719, Win95
486DX2 66, 32 MB RAM, Trident TGUI9440, ESS ES688F, DOS

Reply 11 of 17, by Baoran

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

My Seagate ST31220A is the worst sounding hard drive I have ever heard. The sound is so loud and high pitch that I can't even handle being in same room as the drive even when it is not trying to read or anything. Otherwise it would be a perfect retro hard drive because it is 1Gb and it has an emulation mode where it emulates 500Mb master and 500Mb slave drive at same time for those pcs where you can't use bigger hard drives.

Reply 12 of 17, by RandomStranger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I had a 6.4GB Quantum Fireball until last Sunday. It sounded like a angle grinder.
I saved the data and tried to install a new XP on it. It took 5 hours, then short after finished, it went silent and gave of a bit of smoke.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 13 of 17, by tegrady

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I have 3 WD1200 (120gb IDE) drives. They all work fine, but they sound like a jet taking off. They give off a very high pitch whine. It's almost unbearable.

Reply 14 of 17, by Baoran

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

My seagate sounds about this at idle https://www.dropbox.com/s/f5xj9468sxvafw9/seagate.mp3
Sorry about the bad sound quality because my microphone isn't very good. It is loud enough that I can hear it when it is inside a computer and there is 2 closed doors between me and the computer.

Reply 15 of 17, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

^^ wow, that's nasty. Sounds like the bearing grease has hardened into concrete. I have a 1GB laptop drive I can't use for that reason, it sounds like a dentist's drill ... going into your skull, after a while.

There's a little wrinkle to the story of the Maxtor drive in the OP - I sold it ... well, sort of. I was intending to use it in a system I was putting together to sell to a guy. After I heard what it sounded like, I told him I couldn't provide a HDD & knocked some cash off the price I'd quoted for the cost of a new one. He ended up taking it with that thing still in it, with full knowledge that it was going to die. He texted me later & said he'd gotten a complete Win98 install onto it and was using it despite the clunking while he looked for a new one & had no trouble "so far."

I asked him to text me back when it fails. Bwahaha.

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 16 of 17, by SirNickity

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I have an old 420MB Quantum that sounded like a circular saw for a while after I first got it. I used it in a 386, and the bearings eventually settled down. Not quiet by any means, but not any worse than other drives of its vintage. Still works fine, but I was running out of space, so it got replaced with a slightly larger one.