Read this before you do anything else
Switch it off immediately. This is the worst noise a drive makes.
Grinding means physical contact between the head assembly and the platter surface while the platters are turning. It is the one noise that is actively destroying the recorded surface as you listen to it. Not risking damage, causing it. Material removed from a platter is gone, and no lab recovers what is no longer physically there. Of every symptom on this site, this is the one where the seconds genuinely count.
Emergency
Laptop grinding
If your laptop is making a grinding 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
Laptops are the hardest case to judge by ear, because the drive sits within a few centimetres of a small high-speed fan whose bearings wear out on a predictable schedule, and both noises are transmitted through the same plastic shell. A worn laptop fan and a grinding drive sound very alike. If it is the drive, the heads are in contact with the platter and the machine is making that worse every minute it stays on, because the operating system it is trying to run lives on the disk being damaged.
2.5-inch drives are built to survive being carried, which means they are also the ones most often dropped while running.
Head crash
The heads have come down onto the platters and are scraping the magnetic surface away as the stack spins.
Debris circulating inside the drive
Material shed by a previous failure is being dragged between head and platter, scoring the surface on every rotation.
Collapsed bearing
The platter stack is no longer turning true, bringing the surface into the head's path.
What to check first on a laptop
- Note whether the noise changes with load and heat. A fan spins up when the machine warms and quietens when it cools; a drive fault does not care about temperature and tracks disk activity instead.
- Shut down properly if you can, or hold the power button if you cannot. Do not leave it running while you decide.
- If you have the tools, remove the drive and listen to it on a USB adapter away from the fan. That settles it conclusively.
What not to do
Do not back it up now, which is the reaction everyone has and the worst possible one on this specific symptom. A backup reads every file on the disk, which is the longest sustained head contact you could possibly ask for on a surface that is already being destroyed.
How recoverable this is
The narrowest and least optimistic of any symptom here, and the fair framing is that outcome is decided largely by how long it ran making that noise. Where scoring is confined to regions your files do not occupy, recovery of the rest is realistic. Where it has cut through the area holding them, that part is not recoverable by anyone, and you should be sceptical of a lab that says otherwise.
What moves it, for your device specifically:
- How long it was left running while grinding, which is the single biggest factor
- Which regions of the surface were scored, and whether your files live there
- Whether debris has contaminated otherwise intact surfaces
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 a laptop
Grinding or scraping 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.