[SOLVED] Hard disk drive make clicking noises at random times

[shannonf0nseka]

Hello and good evening,
Since August my hard disk has been making clicking noises at random times. Somtimes a little softly or somtimes loudly. I know while using the hard drive sounds but this is little different.

On some days after booting up, I get a notification saying that the drive has errors, or even after scanning for errors in the tools section of the properties window. While downloading files to the drive, I get "I/O errors". After booting some programs saved in the disk, wont work, or somtimes corrupt. Recently saved items are from fully to partially corrupt.

The drive isn't the system drive, it is used to store downloads, music, videos and programs.

I checked the health of the drive using HD Sentinel program it said, there were around 700 read/write errors and the hard disk health was 100%. I assumed it could be loose wiring or cable damaged, so I tighten it and I changed the SATA cable few weeks ago and I didn't get any clicking noises until today, moments ago.

Before I started using this drive, it was on a abandoned CCTV DVR in our house. I really can't remember that there were data on it. According to the warranty sticker it says 2016 (I would assume this is the year of manufacture). I started using it in November 2019.

Could this be a sign of my hard drive failing? If so can I transfer the entire drive to another HDD (I have one right now) of the same capacity (1 TB)? (I use the entire drive as one partition)

Any help appreciated 😀

 

[USAFRet]

New noises from a drive are rarely a good thing.

What would you do if it died completely in the next 5 minutes?

Always always always have a backup of any data you do not wish to lose.
Noises or no noises.

 

[Paperdoc]

Agreed! Backup NOW! Relevant to your question, your best choice might well be to CLONE that drive to another of identical or larger capacity. But realize that a CLONE will wope out completely ALL of the old data on the Destination Drive. So, if you have data on that destination unit you want to keep, do NOT clone! Use some mass-copying utility to copy all useful fles from the failing unit to the new one.

 

[shannonf0nseka]

your best choice might well be to CLONE that drive to another of identical or larger capacity

Alright, I managed to clone it successfully. But in the new cloned drive, some recently saved files are corrupt and the sizes show, 0 KB. But in the old drive the file isn't corrupt and it's working fully. I feel like copying and pasting them, but I'm just scared, that while transferring, the data might get corrupt and get "I/O" error messages.

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution.

For those apparently corrupted files, it is likely that there was an error in reading them, and that will not happen again when you try to copy. So, for EACH of those, go first to your clone copy. Delete the zero-length file that is corrupt, and note where it is located. Now go to your old failing drive and just COPY that file to the new clone. Check that it arrived OK and can be opened or used. Repeat for all known corrupt drives.

Now, on your main screen open This PC. Find the new closed copy drive and RIGHT-click on its icon. At the bottom of that windows, choose Properties. In that window, click on the Tools Tab and use the Error Checking tool to check all of that clone copy for any other problems (like corrupt files that can't be read). IF you find any like that, also do that process of deleting the corrupt copy and trying to make a new copy from the original failing drive.