Read this before you do anything else
Switch it off now, and don't switch it back on.
The click is the head assembly failing to find its reference position, retracting, and trying again. A head that cannot fly properly is a head in contact with, or close to, the surface holding your files. Every power-up scrapes a little more of it away, and that damage is cumulative and permanent. A drive power-cycled forty times by a hopeful owner is a materially worse job than the same drive brought in after the first click.
Emergency
External hard drive clicking
If your external hard drive is making a clicking noise, the most useful thing on this page is above this paragraph, and it is free. What follows is what the fault usually turns out to be, how recoverable this class of failure is, and what it would cost, including the cases we would tell you to take elsewhere.
What this usually turns out to be
A portable external gets its power from the same USB socket that carries its data, and that is the one thing that can imitate a head fault. A drive that browns out part way through spin-up parks and retries, which produces a click on a rhythm of its own. A genuine head fault clicks in a steady repeating pattern regardless of what it is plugged into; a power fault changes character or stops entirely on a better supply. Those two cases have completely different prices and completely different outcomes, and you can separate them yourself in about a minute without risking anything.
A portable external is a normal drive inside a plastic shell with a USB bridge board. The bridge fails far more often than the drive does, which is why a dead external is better news than a dead internal.
Head assembly failure
The heads themselves are damaged or misaligned and cannot read the servo information they navigate by. This needs the drive opened in a controlled environment.
Failing or seized spindle motor
The platters cannot reach or hold speed, so the heads never get a stable surface to read.
Servo or surface damage
The factory-written reference information the heads navigate by has been damaged, usually by earlier contact.
Underpowered or failing power supplybetter news
An external drive not getting enough current produces a convincing click that has nothing to do with the heads. The drive inside is often perfectly healthy.
Failed USB bridge board in the enclosurebetter news
The interface board between the drive and your computer has failed while the drive behind it is fine. Ordinary work, and it ends well.
What to check first on an external hard drive
- Plug it into a USB port on the back of a desktop, or into a mains-powered hub. Rear ports are wired directly to the board and supply full current; front-panel and hub ports often do not.
- If it came with its own power adapter, check that first: barrel-connector adapters fail far more often than drives, and the symptom is exactly this.
- Listen once, on good power. A steady repeating click that survives the change of supply is mechanical, and that is where the listening stops.
What not to do
Do not keep unplugging and replugging it to see whether it catches this time. Every retry is another pass of the heads across the platter, and on a drive that is genuinely clicking those passes are what turns a recoverable surface into an unrecoverable one.
How recoverable this is
Wide, and it splits early into two very different groups. A genuine head failure needs mechanical work in a cleanroom before a single byte can be read. A power or enclosure fault that merely sounds identical is routine work with a good outcome. Which one you have is the first thing an assessment settles, and it is free.
What moves it, for your device specifically:
- How many times it has been powered on since the noise started
- Whether the click is mechanical at all, or a power or enclosure fault imitating one
- Whether the platter surfaces are still intact where your files live
- Whether donor parts for that exact drive family are obtainable
We will not give you a percentage for your device, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can know what is recoverable until the media has been imaged and read. What is above describes this class of failure; your drive gets its own answer after an assessment, in writing, at no cost.
What it costs
Assessed free, then referred at no charge
Cleanroom mechanical work
Clicking, seized or head-crashed drives need internal mechanical work in a controlled environment. We don't have one, so we assess it, tell you what we found in writing, and refer it on. That referral costs you nothing here.
Nothing is charged until you have seen a fixed quote for your actual device and agreed to it, and the assessment that produces it is free.
Other faults on an external hard drive
- External hard drive beeping
- External hard drive grinding
- External hard drive won't spin up
- External hard drive not showing up
- External hard drive shows up but won't open
- Dropped external hard drive
- Water damaged external hard drive
- Formatted external hard drive by mistake
- Deleted files from external hard drive
Clicking on other devices
Next step
Tell us what failed.
Free assessment. Fixed quote before recovery starts. No recovery, no fee. Sydney drop-off or Australia-wide by tracked post.