FAQ and Technical Articles

Clicking, Screeching, Noisy Sounds;
Hard Dive's Heads and Platters

The computer hard disk drive is a common source of noise sound. It is normal for a spinning hard drive to produce low humming and quiet whistling sounds. However, drive should not produce repetitive clicking, ticking, screeching, or banging noise. Very noticeable humming, squeaking, or any type of hard thump may put your data in danger.

Clicking sound may indicate a very serious hard dive problem. Data recovery from clicking drives is a complicated process. The success rate of recovery depends on the source of problem. Read/write head assembly failure and damaged platter's surface usually generate clicking sounds.

Clicking HHD audio example

So what does a clicking failed hard drive sound like?
There are maybe many clicking patterns for each particular hard drive model.

To help you with telling the difference between a good hard drive and a hard drive that is on its last legs we provide just the one sound pattern to help you diagnose the dangerous problem.

What is a Head assembly?
The Head assembly is often called the hard drive heads (or simply: the heads).

Head assembly and magnets are parts of the stepper actuator (or Stepper Motor), a mechanical gear that positions the read/write head assembly over the appropriate data tracks (cylinders with sectors).

The read/write heads themselves are suspended over the surface of the disk at the ends of the head arms.
The head arms are all mechanically fused into a single structure that is moved around the surface of the disk by the actuator (some kind of motor, turning the head-arm back and forward).

Why clicks put a data in danger
A typical hard disk uses rotating platters to store data. Each platter has a smooth magnetic surface on which digital data is stored.

Moving along and between the platters on a common arm are read/write heads, with one head for each platter surface. The hard disk's read-write heads fly above the data surface with clearance of as little as few nanometers.

Typically, the clicking sound produced by the heads assembly which is hitting their travel-limiting stops. Each click accompanies the vibration of heads on arm, strong enough to exceed that tiny safety gap between the flying heads and spinning disks. As a result, heads touch sensitive data surface and destroy it.

We strongly do not recommend listening to the 'music' of clicking hard drive. To prevent the extensive data damage, immediately shut down your computer or external data storage, take out the drive and dispatch it for the professional data recovery service. Otherwise, you risk loosing your valuable files.