Clicking disk drives

Often customers for disk recovery say that the computer just stopped. It then often turns out that the computer has been going very slow, or making clicking noises.

Hard disk drives will click when the head cannot locate a track. It will try and recalibrate itself by moving the head as far out as possible, and the clicking is when it hits the end stop. When it does this every second or so, it indicates there is a major problem with the drive. Sometimes the sector will be read, and the clicking will stop, but other times, it will continue and the drive will be dead.

If clicking noises are heard from the drive then this indicates there are problems. The drive may continue for months, or could die a few minutes later. The only safe thing to do is to copy off any files that have not been backed up, followed by a full backup. The next stage is to replace the drive. A new physical drive these days is not expensive, and much cheaper than data recovery.

If the drive does die with clicking noises the most likely reason is that the heads have failed. In maybe 80% of cases they can be replaced, but the cost could be 5 to 20 times that of a new drive. Thus take any clicking seriously with a full backup, and most likely a new hard drive.

CnW Recovery does not work on head replacement, but can recommend companies to assist.