Why is my 2nd Drive (HDD) making a low grinding noise? All seems OK.

Although it may be interesting to know which processes are accessing the disk, I guess your only comparison might be none. Comments have been mad about possible noise sources above.

Try booting to Safe Mode out of curiosity. Hopefully no activity then.

From the little shown, True Image and Snagit seem to show some activity- the relevant processes for D: are off the the bottom (lower pane).

Seems quite a bit may be happening- perhaps more than you want if the PC is meant to be idle.

dalchina said:

Try booting to Safe Mode out of curiosity. Hopefully no activity then.

I did and a similar result. I also booted with only essential services running.

Since this is a Data (D:) drive, I will image it and then format.
Let's see what happens. I can always restore the 400 GB BitLocker image quite easily.

Thanks! I'll be back.

a similar result

- If you have noise from the drive and ? no processes using it, something strange is happening.

You could try disconnecting it/removing it and check you stil have that noise...

Well...

This is indeed a mystery!

About 15 minutes after my last post the PC went silent.
I thought that the D: drive had gone but I was incorrect.

The sound mysteriously vanished! Perhaps a internal process or program function had terminated?

Looked at the Event Viewer but no entry to be concerned about was there.

I'm monitoring this system very carefully and will comment further after another 72 hours of observation.

FWIW.

Update -

All is still perfect.
I'm gobsmacked as to the root cause. (had to use this word for our UK friends!)

I'll mark this thread as solved and reopen if required.

Cheers!