Hard Drive Clicking
If you hear your hard drive clicking, but still can access your files - back up your data immediately! Hard drive clicking noise is a very bad omen, it may predict hard drive failure. If the hard drive is no longer recognized by the system, the drive has crashed. Now the only thing you can do is prevent further damage to the disk to improve data / file recovery chances. If you have important files on the crashed disk, do not attempt to recover them at home. Apply to professional data recovery service, or the data will be gone for good.
However, remember that hard drive clicking won’t always warn you about the upcoming failure. But any hard drive will die, it’s a matter of time and chance. Always backup your files.
Below you can see what happens inside when a hard drive is clicking. The weird clicking sound is produced by the actuator arm attempting to attain the right position on the platter to find the required data and failing to do so. Never open the cover of you hard drive at home!
Harmless to use even on a CRASHED drive!
