You may have come across the phrase “click of death” when searching the Internet for answers about your clicking hard drive. The term is frequently used to describe the repetitive clicking sound a hard drive makes when it is unable to access specific areas on the platters or because of firmware corruption.
Originally, the phrase was used to describe issues that were specific to removable media produced and sold in the late 1990s. It was later adopted by owners of hard drives who experienced similar symptoms with their hard drives.
The clicking sound itself is caused by the hard drive recalibrating as the read/write heads inside try to locate inaccessible data. In some situations, the problem is caused by the corruption of firmware, which contains programming data needed for the drive to function properly. In other cases, the problem is caused by damage to the hard drive platters, which is known as a “head crash.” In the latter case, discontinue the use of the drive as soon as possible and contact us for data recovery. Continuing to allow the hard drive to spin and click can cause irreparable damage and affect the outcome for potential data recovery.