Why is my hard drive clicking

[Munster]

My hard drive is making a clicking sound during boot up, then it is not being reconised by my operating system. Gratefull for any suggestions.

[Buenchico]

The heads which read data should never actually touch the surface of the platters of the hard drive. Sometimes, through the infiltration of dust or simply through mechanical wear, this occurs and a clicking sound is heard. Basically, this means that the drive is f*cked.

If the drive has **really** important data on it (e.g. if your company will go bust if the data is lost), switch your PC off immediately and take the drive to a specialist data repair company to retrieve as much data as possible. (This will cost hundreds of pounds but is better than seeing your business go bust). The reason for this is that every attempt to access the drive risks corrupting the data on it.

If the data is less valuable, then it might be worth repeatedly attempting to access the drive and (if possible) copying the data to another drive (or to external media, such as DVDs). Attempting to do so will risk corrupting the data but, if you don't want to pay 'big money' for the services of a data recovery company, that's all you can do.

If you can't access the drive (and don't want, or can't afford, professional data recovery) then, regrettably, all you can do is to scrap the drive (together with the data it holds) and buy a replacement.

Chris

[strugglin']

As an addition or variation to the previous post's comments. I would also suggest you try and make it a slave drive to access if possible, any data you really need. This requires the use of another computer.
I have experienced that problem my self. That method worked for me.

[Nemesis9]

Before you go dropping it into the bin, or spending hundreds of pounds, as has been rather alarmingly suggested, it may be that you have developed what is commonly known as a 'sticky' hard drive.

Generally (but not always) these occur after your PC experiences some type power surge or spike. This means that the 'mechanism' for reading the disk has been slightly damaged (but NOT the data), hence it will not boot up, but typically makes a 'clicking' noise as you describe (rather like what happens when a CD laser skips when unable to read a disc).

The less drastic (and less apocalyptic) suggestion by 'strugglin' is the one to follow. Take your PC to computer store (PC World if you have no other locally) and get them to take a look, and ideally transfer your data to a new drive.
Good luck.