Hard Drive whistle...on its way out?

I

Incubated Funk

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My root drive (160gb Seagate Barracuda sata) makes a very faint whistle type hi pitched noise when i move folders around on my desktop. Its very very faint but i can hear it and although it doesnt bother me i was wondering if the drive might be showing signs of a developing fault. Everything is backed up to an external Lacie so im not overly worried but i would prefer not to have to replace the drive if its not needed.

Running Tech Tool Pro 4's tests showed nothing as everything passed without even minor faults. Is this enough to say the drive is working ok and not to worry? Ive not experienced any issues other than the occassional very very faint whistle but can tech tool pro detect hardware failings of drives adequately enough?

In addition, if i do choose to replace my drive, what is the best way of taking an exact backup of the drive so i can simply switch them over and experience no migration issues?

My options so far are Deja Vu or a prog called Carbon Copy.

Any words of advice would be much appreciated.
 
Hi there.

Cannot give you an answer re the sounds your drive is making; but it would also make me worry, of course.

I definitely recommend to back everything up asap.

Carbon Copy Cloner has got a good reputation, but some people do prefer SuperDuper (free version works well, with only a few limitations). One important thing when using either one of those apps: start the computer into Safe Mode (press Shift - and hold it down - right after you hear the startup chime, then wait until the dialogue box appears where it actually says "Safe Mode"). Apparently this makes the apps work better.

I used Carbon Copy Cloner three or four times, and never had a problem - until I tried it again about a month ago. Just stopped copying at one point - SuperDuper copied everything, but the backup it created was un-usable as a startup drive. Only later did I find out that the Safe Mode thing could have helped - have not had time yet to try it out again myself.

FYI: I also remember reading a comment somewhere from a guy who claimed he lost data using Carbon Copy Cloner. He did, however, not give any specific/further explanations, so I took that with a pinch of salt.

Hope this helps. If you got any more questions: just post them here, and I'll get back to you asap.

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
Patrice, ive just got a new 2nd lacie so i might do an experiment with both back up progs and see how they work.

Thanks for the advice!
 
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