Failed hard drive noise: Here’s a short recording of the chirping and clicking noise made by a failed hard drive of my first-generation G5 2x2 (purchased 10/03). The drive failed suddenly, chirping and clicking while trying to mount and otherwise emitting a high-pitched whine.

The drive was a Maxtor Calypso 250 GB, stock from Apple and three years old. While most utilities saw it on the buss, none could access any files, and the drive could not mount.

I replaced the drive with an AppleCare-supplied Maxtor 7Y250M0.

The replacement went without incident, and the new drive seemed nice and quiet.

I recorded the sound with the built-in microphone of a hand-held Sony portable tape recorder, with the G5’s aluminum door off.

Update: A little less than one year after I first posted this page, the second Apple-supplied Maxtor drive failed with exactly the same noise, also with no warning. Perhaps the drives were from the same manufacturing batch.

I replaced the second failed Maxtor drive with a Hitachi HDT725032VLA360 (no more Maxtors for me). This drive runs a good ten degrees cooler than the Maxtor, and the drive bay sensor shows about 20 degrees lower temperature than I was used to with the Maxtor.