Common hard drive problems — and what each one means.

Of all the things that can help you determine if your hard drive is having trouble, knowing when to shut it off may be the most important. Many types of failures get worse with use: clicking drives will continue to “score” the surfaces of their platters slightly more with each additional spin-up cycle; drives with bad sectors lose slightly more with each read/write operation across the faulty areas; once a file system becomes corrupted, rebuilding the file system becomes increasingly difficult with each subsequent write operation to a previously uncorrupted area. Therefore, if the data is critical and the drive is acting erratically, the safest initial course of action is usually to stop, power down, and work out which kind of problem you have before proceeding further. As indicated below, there are four categories of problems (mechanical/electronic/logical/physical damage), and taking corrective action for one category could often exacerbate another.

Hard drives typically make noise as a result of mechanical failure. Typically you should turn off a noisy hard drive immediately. The most common “noise” heard when a computer makes an abnormal loud noise due to its internal components is called Clicking. The clicking sounds that occur from the “click of death” occurs when the read / write heads fail to find their correct positions on the disk and reset themselves, over and over again. Usually this will mean either the heads have crashed or they have become faulty. Every time you turn on the computer after it has been shut down the risk exists for the heads to rub against the disk surfaces which contain your files. More information about clicking hard drives are covered in detail at why is my hard drive clicking. There is no need to continue attempting to use the computer if it is making noises such as clicking. Don’t even think about freezing it. A clicking hard drive requires immediate service including a head replacement and imaging. Beeping indicates that the spindle motor is having difficulty spinning the disk and is ultimately failing. Often this beeping is a sign that the read / write heads have become stuck to the surface of the disk (Stiction) or the motor bearings have failed causing the spindle motor to seize. Repeatedly turning on and off the computer will not help dislodge the heads and may cause additional damage by burning out the motor. Grinding or scraping is the worst form of noise made by a computer. This type of noise typically indicates that something is physically rubbing up against the disks and destroying data. Regardless of whether your hard drive is making noise related to clicking, beeping, or grinding/scraping, all three types require the same action: Turn Off Your Computer Immediately And Do Not Turn It On Again.

When a drive is non-functional, or simply “gone,” it may mean the physical data on the disks themselves was never damaged. In many cases, when a drive does not work it means something in the electronics of the drive (and/or firmware) has stopped working properly. A drive that won’t power on at all, and thus makes neither sound nor spins the disks, most likely has suffered from a failure of the circuit board (PCB), typically due to either an overheated TVS diode caused by some form of electrical surge, or possibly due to a malfunctioning power supply. The actual storage media (the disks) is likely in good condition. Replacing the defective PCB with one identical in design and matching donor board with the original firmware ROM stored within it should restore functionality. This replacement however is not a plug-and-play fix, as newer hard disk drives contain specific information about their calibration, stored in the firmware ROM. Therefore, you cannot just replace a PCB without knowing what calibration information is associated with that drive. If you attempt to do so blindly, the chances are high that it will fail (more in hard drive won’t power on). A hard drive that spins up but isn’t detected by your operating system is also somewhat ambiguous as well. It could be faulty firmware in the service area of the drive, a faulty PCB, or it could simply be a logical problem. First eliminate the boring reasons for this behaviour. Try using a different cable, different port on the motherboard or controller card, and use it connected to another computer. Once you’ve eliminated those possibilities, go into your Disk Management utility in Windows, or Disk Utility in Macs. As long as you see the drive listed in these utilities, the issue is probably logical. A drive that shows up there, but does not show up anywhere else (such as Explorer/Finder) is likely experiencing a logical problem. However if you can’t find the drive at all, then it’s most likely an electronic or firmware related problem. Our guides on hard drive not showing up and drive not recognised recovery walk through both.

Sometimes everything will work fine with your drive, yet your data appears wrong, and in those cases, your greatest risk will be one mistaken mouse click. When you see ‘You need to format the disk before you can use it’ or when the drive displays as RAW, in almost all instances, it’s simply due to a file system being damaged, and not because your files have been lost. Your files are probably on the platter(s); formatting is the one action you should avoid at all costs if you want them recovered (and safely), so don’t format it: image the drive or recover from it first. File system errors are what cause missing directories (“the file/directory is corrupt”) and mounts that appear normal but contain no data: both are often caused by a hasty shut down, and/or a mechanical failure in the drive that is slowly causing sectors to go bad. For those types of issues, there are tools available which offer some degree of recovery software: as long as the drive is mechanically healthy and silent, there are several good products that can restore the file structure and retrieve your files. Do NOT run scanning software on a failing drive that clicks, is slow or generates error messages: just trying to read the platters may damage it further. Refer to corrupted drive recovery and recovering data from a dead hard drive for more information.

Physical accidents require you to act with speed, care. In addition, if a hard drive was dropped or knocked; shock may move the head onto the platter’s surface, although it appears to function. Therefore, back-up your data immediately, and if it starts clicking or stops being recognised, treat it as mechanical from this point forward and power off (see dropped & damaged drive recovery). If a hard drive has been wet or flooded; do not attempt to dry the drive and then plug it into a computer. This will create short-circuits that accelerate corrosion. Store it in its current state and seek help at a professional laboratory. Drives that have become wet but have not been turned on can frequently be recovered. As such, there are no exceptions to the rule of not turning on a wet hard-drive. Fire or heat damage to a hard-drive is also similar. Do not try to run the hard-drive after a fire. Do not disassemble the hard-drive after a fire. There are many cases where the casing of the hard-drive was destroyed during a fire but the physical disks themselves survived. Our water & fire damage recovery page describes what occurs subsequent to these events.

Usually most disks do not fail before giving some type of sign of impending doom: they will slow way down. If opening files takes forever, if the computer just freezes & locks-up with “Not Responding” messages, if certain folders keep disappearing & reappearing, excessive heat from the disk or if copying files crawls along at a glacial pace are all signs of a disk that has developed bad sectors and is trying to re-read failed data. If you receive a SMART warning (your OS or a utility program reports “Impending Drive Failure”) then you can bet that it’s a message from the disk itself as to its current status. The good news here is that the disk is currently failing, but probably still readable; thus you are working within a window of time. Therefore, it would be wise to back it up now while possible; running this disk until it finally fails may shorten your window with each day you continue using it. To help guide you through identifying when your disk is failing and checking your disks for problems, our guides on the signs your hard drive is failing and how to check hard drive health should give you guidance.

Reasonable to try yourself if your drive is mechanically good (no noise and no SMART errors). Swap your cable, port, and computer to eliminate the obvious issues. Use Disk Management or Disk Utility to determine if there’s a logic or hardware issue. If you’ve made backups, use that. Otherwise, if you’ve used a cloud drive or version history, use those as well. Lastly, if the error in question was simply logic related and the drive itself is physically intact, then run a reputable recovery application (ideally after creating an image of the drive) so you’re using a clone. If the drive makes “clicking”, “beeping” or “grinding” noises; doesn’t spin up at all; shows visible signs of physical/water/fire damage; shows SMART errors/bad sectors; or contains irreplaceable files/data and you’re not sure... Stop and get help. Don’t know how many times we’ve seen a recoverable drive become a non-recoverable drive because people thought they could do some form of DIY recovery and didn’t follow the proper steps. The three most common DIY killer methods for a recoverable drive include opening a drive outside of a lab, trying the old “put the drive in the freezer” trick, or trying to swap out the circuit board from a random donor hard drive. When it comes down to it... when DIY is no longer possible (i.e., the above examples), professional hard drive recovery starts with a FREE Diagnostic and HONEST assessment of the ability to repair. In fact, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.