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# Disk noise

For those who miss the gentle whirring and clicking of old hard drives and floppies, DOSBox Staging can play emulated disk noises. It’s a small touch, but it adds a surprising amount of atmosphere — there’s something oddly satisfying about hearing the floppy drive chatter while a game loads.

For the full “waiting for the game to load” experience, pair disk noises with throttled disk speeds (see the floppy_disk_speed and hard_disk_speed settings). The volume is adjustable via the `DISKNOISE` mixer channel.

## Configuration settings

You can set the disk noise parameters in the `[disknoise]` configuration section.

##### floppy_disk_noise

  Enable emulated floppy disk noises. Plays spinning disk and seek noise sounds when enabled. It’s recommended to set floppy_disk_speed to lower than `maximum` for an authentic experience.

  Possible values:

  - `off` default – No floppy disk noises.
  - `seek-only` – Play floppy disk seek noises only, no spin noises.
  - `on` – Play both floppy disk seek and spin noises.

  Note

  You can customise the disk noise volume by changing the volume of the `DISKNOISE` mixer channel.

##### hard_disk_noise

  Enable emulated hard disk noises. Plays spinning disk and seek noise sounds when enabled. It’s recommended to set hard_disk_speed to lower than `maximum` for an authentic experience.

  Possible values:

  - `off` default – No hard disk noises.
  - `seek-only` – Play hard disk seek noises only, no spin noises.
  - `on` – Play both hard disk seek and spin noises.

  Note

  You can customise the disk noise volume by changing the volume of the `DISKNOISE` mixer channel.