Why is my hard drive clicking?
When a hard drive begins making any kind of noise other than a reassuring
and subtle whir, it’s safe to say that there’s a problem that needs to be
addressed. When a drive makes an audible clicking sound, however, the problem
is also likely to be significant and the services of hard drive repair experts are likely to be needed. Why is this?
In order to write and read data, all hard drives use what are known as
heads. These write data on to what is referred to as a platter (essentially a
disk covered in a magnetic surface) when you save it, and read it from the
platter when you want to view it. If a hard drive begins to click, it almost
certainly means that these key components are not functioning correctly meaning
that your hard drive can no longer read the data that is stored on it.
Sometimes the clicking can be ascribed to a failed circuit board. On other
occasions, these sounds can be down to a series of errors having resulted in
the drive attempting to ‘reset’ itself and the heads repeatedly loading and
unloading or the actuator (the device that moved the drive’s head) frequently
stopping the head from moving. Under such circumstances, it is generally
possibly to recover the data held on the drive.
Unfortunately, clicking can also be a symptom of the far more serious
problem of a head crash. Under these circumstances, the drive’s heads come into
direct contact with its platter. As discussed previously, the top layer of the
platter is comprised of a magnetic material and it is in this material that
data is stored. As the platters in modern hard drives spin at speeds of up to
75 miles per hour, the contact between the two creates friction which, in turn,
produces a significant amount of heat that will, over time, damage the magnetic
material that coats the platter and on which the drive’s data is stored.
Put simply, if your hard drive is making a clicking noise of any kind, you
need to power down your machine and this storage media immediately. Continuing
to use the drive is certain to make any damage considerably worse and could,
potentially, render any of the data held on the drive unreadable.
So, turn it off and get your drive to Fields Data Recovery for a free data recovery diagnostic and no-obligation quote today.