When your hard drive is clicking, you are often wondering what is happening to your hard drive. This is a sign that the hard drive is about to fail soon and that you should get all your data off as quickly as you can. The cause of this clicking sound is the arm of the hard drive platter moving as far as it can to the right, in a pattern or randomly.
If this write head touches the platter of the hard drive and scratches it, all the data that is stored on that portion will be erased and be unwritable. The hard drive repeatedly attempts to recalibrate the write head, causing the abrupt clicking noises. In most of these cases, the problem is caused by a manufacture defect or physical abuse of the hard drive itself.
Vibrations, drops, and shaking are attributes leading to a dying hard drive. Rough physical contact should be avoided, as you risk damaging the components within the hard drive, leading to failure if your hard drive over a period time. However, you should always be prepared for failures of your hard drive, in case something does happen.
It is a good habit to back up your important data on your hard drive. You can do this by burning data to CD"s and DVD"s, which you can copy back to your new hard drive, if it the old one crashes. An external hard drive can also be used to back up many files on your hard drive, as most of them can hold a lot of data.
New technologies such as SD, MicroSD, and USB flash drives are also increasing in capacity, as they are made out of flash memory, they have no moving parts, with added reliability. You should always keep your data in multiple forms of media, so in case something happens to one source of data, you have another to back it up. Backing up your data at least twice a month is an important strategy you should employ to prevent losing data from a hard drive failure.
Hard drive clicking, a sign of failure, can occur at any time during its lifetime. Failure of your hard drive can often be unexpected and you are in a rush to get all important files off it right away. However, if you have a proper data backup plan, you are safe and have nothing to worry about if your hard drive begins to make a clicking noise. Avoiding rough physical contact and vibrations can also help to prolong the life of the components within your hard drive.