If your computer won’t boot up and you can hear a clicking noise, this could indicate a physical fault with your machine’s hard drive.
Aran Pitter, our Commercial Director says:
"Our team handles hundreds of clicking hard drives every year, and we’re proud to say that our recovery success rate is exceptionally high. With the right expertise and tools, even seemingly catastrophic hard drive failures can often be resolved, giving our customers access to their invaluable data once again. "
In a mechanical hard disk drive, a spindle motor spins the magnetic platters at speeds of up to 15,000 RPM. Positioned mere nanometers above these platters are the read/write heads, located at the tip of the actuator arm. These delicate components can sometimes become stuck, clamping down on the platters. A beeping noise typically occurs when the spindle motor tries to spin the platters but is obstructed by the clamped read/write heads—a condition known as a head crash. In some cases, the heads may partially obstruct the platters’ movement, producing a clicking sound instead of a beep.
If you hear clicking from your hard drive, avoid using it if you want to recover the data. Hard drives store data magnetically on the platters in the form of 0s and 1s. Physical damage to these platters can make the data permanently unrecoverable. If a head crash occurs, give us a call. Attempting to fix a physically damaged hard drive at home, without proper facilities and tools, can worsen the damage. Our technicians perform such work in a Class 100 clean room, where the environment contains no more than 100 particles of dust per cubic foot. This level of cleanliness is critical because even a single dust particle can cause further damage to the read/write heads or platters.
In summary, a clicking hard drive often signals a head crash, which might result from physical impact or the natural wear of the drive over time. Avoid DIY attempts at data recovery and seek help to maximize your chances of recovering your data.
What not to do with a clicking hard drive
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Don’t Keep Using the Drive
Continuing to power on or use a clicking hard drive can worsen the damage. Each attempt to access the drive increases the risk of irreparable harm to the platters, where your data is stored.
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Don’t Open the Drive
Opening a hard drive outside of a cleanroom environment can introduce dust and debris, causing further damage. Even a single particle of dust can ruin the delicate components inside.
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Don’t Try DIY Repairs
Common DIY solutions like freezing the drive, tapping it, or using software tools won’t fix physical damage and can make recovery impossible. Physical repairs require specialized tools and expertise.
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Don’t Run Recovery Software
Recovery software is designed for logical failures, not physical damage. Running such programs on a physically damaged drive can strain the failing components and potentially corrupt the data further.
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Don’t Ignore the Noise
A clicking hard drive is a clear sign of a mechanical fault. Ignoring it and delaying action could lead to a complete failure, making data recovery far more difficult or impossible.
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Author:
Michael Jones, Technical Director
Further reading
Considerations following a ransomware attack
The hard drive click of death
Navigating Linux recovery mode