Should my hard drive be making that noise?
Hard drives have moving parts and when things move, they
often create sound. To put it another way, like a car engine, your hard drive
can be noisy and still healthy. Some sounds, though, indicate that something is
seriously wrong.
Typically, hard drives will make low-pitched whirring or
whining noises – particularly when they’re booting up or accessing/storing data
– or clicking noises. These are usually perfectly normal and not a cause for
concern. It’s also worth noting that it’s far from uncommon for people to
assume that something is wrong with their hard drive because of the noise
produced by their machine’s fan.
Just as you know that something’s wrong when an engine makes
a popping or scraping sound, though, you can identify when things are starting
to go wrong with your hard drive as soon as it starts to produce certain sounds
and take action before you've lost data – just like you’d take your car to a
mechanic before the problem got worse.
Like we’ve said, it’s perfectly normal for hard drives to
make some noise, but this is nearly always low-pitched and relatively
inobtrusive. When the noise being produced is pronounced and aggressive, it’s
almost certainly a sign that something’s wrong. Before doing anything else,
power-down your machine, remove the power and data cables from your hard drive
and power it back up. If the noise is still there, it’s not coming from your
hard drive. If it isn’t, then here are some of the sounds you might be hearing
and a brief description of why:
Grinding
We’ve deliberately started with the worst possible scenario
here. If your drive is making a grinding noise, it’s likely that the drive has
suffered from a head crash and the drive’s read-write head has come into
contact with the platter.
The data contained on a hard drive is written onto a thin
magnetic layer resting on the platter’s surface and the grinding sound you’re
hearing is effectively the read-write head stripping this away.
If you hear a grinding sound coming from your hard drive,
power it down as soon as possible; the head will continue to cause damage to
the platter and erase your data until you do.
Clicking
Yes, some clicking is normal but repeated loud clicking is
usually a sign of head failure. Basically, a constant clicking sound results from
the drive consistently trying to restart following an error and, again, you’ll
need to power down your machine as soon as you possibly can.
Beeping
If, upon powering up your machine, your hard drive beeps but
makes no further noise, it’s likely that the spindle that spins the drive’s
platters has seized. Another sure-fire sign that your drive’s spindle’s seized
is your machine not recognising the drive.
What to do if your
hard drive sounds strange
If you hard drive is suddenly making strange sounds, contact
Fields Data Recovery for a free diagnostic and a no-obligation
data recovery quote today.