Here I am on the same subject again. Instead of writing an introduction about the problem I would rather point you to that article (Problem with hard drive clicking) where the problem is discussed in detail.
The reason to be on the same subject again is simple as: I got another clicking disk at home... This time it was on an HP dv5000 notebook equipped with Toshiba HDD. It was fine for about an year and a half, until recently. I have not done any changes at all to that computer, only software updates. Now, Toshiba does not provide any tool that can alter the APM setting of the hard disk so I tried the Linux hdparm tool. For those that are not familiar with Linux there are Windows precompiled binaries here. I will suggest using these binaries since there are some annoyances, probably related to the Windows power manager, that will require to tune the parameters from Windows.
Here is the story in brief.
I have altered the default value for the APM from 128 to 192 as it was suggested in the article mentioned above with a command like this (hdparm -B 192 /dev/hda). It worked. I was almost declaring the battle as over, when I noticed that the APM mode that 192 sets is producing some busing noise... I didn't like it so I went to 140 for the APM parameter. That worked fine and I got rid from the frequent clicking sound. I still get the heads parked from time to time but at much more reasonable rate.
Now about the problem with the Windows APM (I am not sure that this is the real cause). When the computer is restarted, the HDD APM setting is set back to the default 128 that brings me back to... where I was before. To solve that glitch I have created a small batch file that sets the parameter to the one that I want, every time when an user login to the computer. Additionally, hdparm needs to be run with administrator rights, so I have used CPAU tool with encryption and CRC checks to avoid typing the administrator password every time and this also makes it safe for use by the other users on this computer.
Appendix (commands used in this article with some explanations):
Appendix (commands used in this article with some explanations):
hdparm -I /dev/hda # Request identification info directly from the drive. In the output one can find the current APM setting. /dev/hda is a Linux standard to address devices. hda points to the first ATA HDD, hdb to the second etc. The snapshot shows an example output from the program on another computer and especially the line that shows the current APM settings.- hdparm -B 140 /dev/hda # Set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports it. A low value means aggressive power management and a high value means better performance. A value of 255 will disable apm on the drive. Please, read the references in this post to avoid vendor specific problems.
- cpau -u Administrator -ex "hdparm.exe -B 140 /dev/hda" -enc -file "hdparm.job" -crc "hdparm.exe" # This command creates a file with name "hdparm.job" that contains the encrypted information to run hdparm with administrator rights and CRC sum of the executable binary to prevent cheap tricks.
- cpau -dec -file "hdparm.job" -lwp # This is the content of a batch file that starts the process. Then one can put a shortcut in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\" that will start automatically that bat file when somebody logs in.
