The “click of death” is what happens to a hard drive when it repeatedly attempts to perform an endless calibration process that it cannot successfully accomplish: a failed head is unable to find its reference points. Grinding is worse: it means the head(s) have begun grinding away at the platters’ surfaces. In addition to the grinding action there is the possibility of scraping of the platter surface. Either grinding or scraping causes irreparable damage to data on the hard disk while it continues to operate. The first step in either scenario is to turn the unit off and leave it off until further assistance can be arranged. Contact us directly using the telephone number on this page.
When you first turn on a hard disk, its heads move to find the “servo” track(s) that tell them where they are (and how to position themselves). If the heads are damaged from something like a crash or some other physical impact (knock), it can’t find those servo tracks, so the heads slam back and try again… and again… and again, sometimes until the drive spins down. Each time the heads fail to properly locate their positions, they will drag across your data (at high speeds) causing further damage. The recovery is a head transplant: a matched donor assembly is fitted and the drive is coaxed into calibration. Since transplanted heads have a limited lifespan (in hours) and are likely to be operating under extreme conditions as soon as installed, imaging should occur right away, with weak zones last.
If you hear grinding, squealing or scratching coming from your hard drive, that is a warning sign that something (a failed head, or debris from one) has made contact with a disk spinning at 5,400 to 7,200 RPM. The magnetic coating of the disks holds all your data. Once this coating is scratched away by contact with a failing part, all data held in that area is gone forever. Because time is very much money when dealing with such an eventuality, turn the power off at the wall if needed to prevent further damage. We are then left with the task of damage mapping the remaining areas to preserve as much of the data as possible, and the diagnostic will be able to determine what percentage of the original data can be recovered before you spend anything. As far back as the early days of recovering lost data on PCs, there was a rumour going around about using the “freezer” method. In reality, condensation would form on the platters, on top of the thermal shock created by freezing temperatures. By freezing your hard drive, you were turning recoverable media into less recoverable media. Please do not store your hard drive in a refrigerator or freezer after a failure. Keep the drive turned off and at room temperature.
There isn’t one. Treat what you’ve already heard as your entire budget. Every time you turn it on, the damaged read/write heads are dragged back and forth across your data at full speed. Some can take up to 50 cycles, but others are destroyed after just five. So, you don’t know if your drive is going to be good or bad. There is no benefit to taking the gamble because a diagnostic test costs nothing without having to take it.
No. This method originated with an entirely different type of hard drive than we see today. On modern drives, this will add moisture and thermal stress to whatever else went wrong. Every month, we get drives from people whose data was recoverable while the drive was clicking, and who then had their drives go bad when they pulled them out of the freezer. Those drives should never have been turned on again and should have been stored at room temperature, powered off, and boxed.
Not necessarily worse, just different. When a silent disk occurs it generally indicates the heads of the drive are dead or the drive has locked itself out. At least with a silent drive there will be no further damage to the platters. The repair process remains the same: transplanting the heads and creating an image of the original. The diagnostic process can tell you how much damage was done during that week, and at no charge.