The noise tells us a good deal about what has failed and how fast it is getting worse. A steady click is the heads failing to find their bearings; a scrape is contact with the platter itself. Both deteriorate every rotation, which makes the time between the first noise and the power switch the most important factor in the result.
$ mdr diagnose /dev/sda → Device: Seagate ST2000DM008 · 2 TB → Status: CLICKING — head stack failure → Client: confidential · Burnley, Greater Manchester $ mdr engineer-working → Donor heads matched: from stock · 0 days wait → Head-stack swap: complete → Imaging: 1.79 TB / 1.81 TB $ mdr verify → ✓ wedding_photos — 142,318 files → ✓ tax_records — 4,201 files → ✓ everything else — back home
Clicking means the heads cannot read where they are. Grinding means they are touching the platter. Neither improves with another attempt, and the amount ultimately recovered tracks closely with how long the drive ran after the noise began.
You do not need the right vocabulary. These are the descriptions we actually hear, and each points somewhere specific.
“It’s clicking like a metronome.” A steady rhythm, once or twice a second, continuing indefinitely. The head assembly is being driven back to its stop and recalibrating because it cannot find the positioning data it needs. This is the one people mean by the click of death, and it is a head or servo fault.
“It clicks a few times then goes quiet.” Three or four attempts and the drive parks itself. Frequently a firmware or service-area problem rather than physical damage — better news than the metronome, and often recoverable without opening the drive at all.
“It sounds like sandpaper.” Scraping, rasping, a rough note under the spin. The heads are in contact with the platter and removing the coating your data is written on. This is the one where minutes genuinely count.
“It buzzes but never spins up.” A short strain every few seconds and no rotation. Not the heads at all — either a seized bearing or heads bonded to the surface after a long spell unpowered. Different fault, same instruction: stop.
By the time a drive reaches any lab, most of the outcome has already been determined at home or in the office.
A head that has begun failing is not simply reading badly — it may be flying lower than designed, or making intermittent contact. Each rotation at 5,400 or 7,200 rpm passes the entire track beneath it again. A drive run for ten minutes after the noise started is a materially different proposition from one restarted every morning for a fortnight, and the difference shows up as scored regions where nothing can be read by any means.
This is worth being blunt about because it is the one part that is entirely in your hands. No equipment recovers a surface that is no longer there. Powering the drive off promptly is more valuable than anything that happens afterwards.
The part of this work that most often sets the timescale, and the reason two identical-looking drives can differ by a week.
A donor is not simply another drive of the same model. Head assemblies are matched to the platters they were built alongside — head count, preamp characteristics, firmware revision and manufacturing batch all have to align. Two drives sharing a model number on the label can differ internally by build date, and fitting the wrong assembly does not produce a partial recovery; it produces a drive that clicks in a new way.
So sourcing is a real constraint. Common consumer models are usually on the shelf. Enterprise drives, unusual capacities and anything more than a decade old may need finding, and that is why an elderly drive takes longer without being any less recoverable. Once fitted, the drive is imaged in short controlled passes with per-head timeouts — a transplanted drive may give one good read and it is spent deliberately, on the directories you actually asked for first.
Why this particular job splits from the rest.
A clicking or grinding drive is from £300 +VAT, fixed after the free 48-hour diagnostic. Unlike most work here it carries a 50% deposit, and the reason is worth stating: a donor drive has to be bought and clean-air bench time committed before anyone knows whether the platters are readable. Those costs are spent whatever the surface turns out to look like.
The balance is payable only if the recovery succeeds. And if the diagnostic finds platters scored badly enough that little is retrievable, you will be told before the deposit is taken rather than after — there is no value to us in starting a job that cannot finish.
Get the device to us with a short note on what happened. The diagnostic that follows costs nothing, and the figure that follows it is fixed in writing before any work begins.
Nothing can begin until the device is on the bench, which makes this the only step that needs anything from you. Pack it properly, put your details in with it, and send it over. What follows is a free diagnostic and a written figure, in that order.
Posting it? Use something tracked and insured — whatever is on the drive is worth considerably more than the postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays, 9am to 5:30pm, and it still wants packing as above for the journey.
Tell us what the device is, what it is doing, and anything already tried — an engineer will come back with a realistic view of the odds and a price band, before you commit to posting anything.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 0161 871 0788.
The questions we hear most about clicking and grinding drives.
A steady click once or twice a second is the head assembly retracting to its stop and recalibrating, over and over, because it cannot find its servo positioning data. It means the heads are failing — and if they are physically compromised, every attempt costs surface.
Usually yes. Three or four clicks then silence often means the drive detected a problem and parked itself, which points at firmware or the service area rather than physical head damage. Those are frequently recoverable without opening the drive.
That is the worst noise a drive makes. Scraping means the heads are touching the platter and removing the magnetic coating, so data is being destroyed continuously while it runs. Power it off immediately — minutes matter here in a way they do not with clicking.
No, and this is where most recoverable data is lost. One more attempt on a scraping drive can widen the damaged band permanently. Whatever that file is worth, it is not worth the rest of the disk.
Because head assemblies are matched to the platters they were built alongside — head count, preamp characteristics, firmware revision and batch all have to align. Common models are on the shelf; enterprise, unusual or elderly drives may need sourcing.
From £300 plus VAT with a 50% deposit, because donor parts and clean-air time are committed before anyone knows what the platters look like. The balance is due only on success, and if the diagnostic shows heavy scoring you hear that before paying anything.
Every repair is backed by a 10,000-piece donor store, opens with a free written diagnostic, and on most jobs is no fix, no fee. Begin today.