Harddrive moaning!

[BobbyDRZA]

I have a 40GB Western Digital hardisk drive and it normally moaned everytime I loaded my machine then would stop after about 20 seconds and now it moans on and off while I am in Windows and want to know what is going on and what I should do. This isn't the first case of Western Digital HD maoning I have had, my very first built machine I had a few years ago would do it on bootup for a few seconds. Should I just go ahead and get another drive and if so I want to transfer everything just how it is on the 40, I want to transfer to the new one and put it in and bootup. Would my performance drop if I do this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bahawolf1]

Sounds coming from the hard drive ussually aren't good. How old is the drive?

It might be going bad, or it might be mounted wrong.

 

[BobbyDRZA]

I have had it since 2003 and it recently started moaning on and off and is louder than it usually was before. But if I get a new drive can I put it in and transfer all my windows and all files in tact to the new one, take out the old one then, and bootup on the new one without having to reinstall Windows and still have good performance?

 

[Bahawolf1]

You can buy a new drive from http://www.newegg.com and you should not lose performance.. I don't see why you would.

The easiest way to do this is to install XP on the new drive, and then mount it along with the other drive, and then copy all the files over. I think thats the best way to do it.. but get a 2nd opinion..

 

[alvino]

What do you mean by moan? Does it really make a moaning sound like a human would? Or does it just make some abnormal sound?

I think it's time for a complete back-up of your data, your hard drive may be on it's way out.