How to troubleshoot noisy Hard drive ?

[Balgovind]

hello,
I was having Windows Vista as my operating system.I recently removed Vista from my computer and reinstalled XP.
Since this time my primary hard drive, Seagate 160GB, makes some cracking noise every 3-4 seconds. Every cracking noise lasts just 0.50 seconds. It seems like it is constantly trying to access or seek.
Well,I dont have any performance problems.

what my hard drive is doing?Any ideas.

[RoninBlade]

Hard drives are usually nearly silent but some do make a muted clicking sound when they're being accessed - this is normal.
On the other hand, if you start hearing noises only occasionally or noises that you've never heard before - like clicking, grinding or squealing - your hard drive may be failing.

You can run free hard drive diagnostic software, already available on most PCs or available on the Internet.

Time Required: Anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours depending on the cause of the hard drive noise.

To Download Click Here

Note:
At best, diagnostic software will only mark the areas of the hard drive that are failing as "bad" and prevent the computer from using them in the future. It will not truly fix a hard drive that is physically failing.

If any corrections made by the diagnostics software do not temporarily resolve the hard drive noise, do a complete backup of your system and replace the hard drive immediately.

[Maxforu]

Since you are not facing any performance problems, you may be allowing the indexing service to run on that drive.
Right click on the drive and check properties.
You can see on the bottom check box.

[Fabian]

When your hard drive starts making grinding or squeling noise, it means that you drive is starting to fail.
Since there is no good way to repair a failing hard drive, the permanent solution is to do a complete backup of your system and replace the hard drive as soon as possible.

With an up-to-date backup, recovering from a hard drive failure is as simple as installing a new drive and restoring your data.

The good news about discovering a potential hard drive failure today is that hard drives are inexpensive these days and installing a new one is easy.Many retailers sell high-capacity hard drives, up to 200 Gb, for $100 or less.
If your drive shows signs of failing, replace it immediately, your data is far more important than the price of the disk drive.