What causes a hard drive to click?

A hard drive clicking, also known as the click of death, is typically not a good sign for your hard drive. It means that your hard drive is wobbling on its last legs and will soon no longer be operational. This can be a huge problem, as all information we store on our computers is stored on our hard drives, and being unable to access that information may be a huge issue for everyday computer users and businesses alike. That’s why you should know that this is a serious issue that should be resolved immediately. Before trying anything yourself to get your data back, we’ll explain what causes a hard drive to click, and what you should do to properly get your hard drive back.

What causes a hard drive to click?

When your hard drive is reading data, the render head attached to an arm that moves back and forth in your hard drive scans the platters searching for what you’re looking for. When the render head is unable to find the data that it is looking for, the arm keeps moving back and forth across the platter and hits a stop when it has reached the end of the platter, which is the source of the clicking noise. The render head may not be able to properly read the platter for a number of reasons, and the majority of the problems will be out of your control to fix on your own.

What’s Wrong?

With the majority of cases, the render head is the source of the problem. Over time, the render head will eventually wear out and not be able to read the platters of a hard drive properly. If the render head has trouble finding the data that it is supposed to find, the hard drive will go into shut down mode and it won’t be possible to recover data from the hard drive without the help of a trained professional. There are many other scenarios in which might explain a clicking hard drive and the hard drive eventually crashing, including too much or too little power is given to the hard drive, a chip on the hard drive, or debris on the hard drive platters.

Do Not Remove the Cover!

Removing the cover exposes the platter on the hard drive to airborne debris and will immediately make the hard drive useless forever. Because hard drive platters are so sensitive to airborne particles, it’s very unlikely that even a trained data recovery expert would be able to recover any data from the hard drive. A hard drive cover can only be removed in a Class 100 cleanroom where temperature and humidity is monitored and airborne particles are minimalized.

What Can I Do Now?

It may be too late to say this, but the best way to prevent data loss is to back up your data and back it up regularly. You should keep irreplaceable data in a safe and secure location that is ideally in a different geographic location than your computer in the event of a disaster like a fire or flood. If your hard drive is already making a clicking noise, the best thing to do is nothing. Trying to run data recovery software may lead to additional issues making data recovery more unlikely, and you may not be identifying the actual issue with the hard drive if you try to recover the data using methods that won’t work.

The best thing for you to do is to reach out to a data recovery professional who has seen many situations involving clicking hard drives. Explain your situation, any events that you believe may have caused the issue, and what you have done with your computer or hard drive since it started clicking. At Data Recovery Group, we deal with clicking hard drive issues all the time. Contact us, and we would be happy to help you diagnose the problem with your hard drive.