Question HDD click and doesn't initialize

Hello there, urgent question.

I got a Hard Drive to weirdly click recently, however it was working just fine until I realised it has horrible SMART pending sectors count 40

Then I just listened to chatgpt and ran "chkdsk" which completely jammed my drive. Is there anything I can do see what's inside the drive?
If it can't be read by your PC, there is no consumer level fix that will work.
 
I understand, however, it was fully usable until I did "chkdsk" command. Then it jammed it completely. Maybe something is still possible? What is the cause of this issue?
No. Unless you want to spend tons of money and you still won't be guaranteed to get the data back.

Heat or anything else (components failure) can be the cause.
 
Running that chkdsk pushed it over the edge, from "failing" to "actually failed".

The time to worry about the data was when you got it, or at least when it started making new noises.
Surely, but, there's 3 hard drives in my PC and I couldn't be sure which one is making noises. The SMART that time was good for each one. Only today It got detected.
 
Surely, but, there's 3 hard drives in my PC and I couldn't be sure which one is making noises. The SMART that time was good for each one. Only today It got detected.
And I had an SSD die literally instantly.

Turn PC off
Come back 5 minutes later, turn PC on.....

Hey, wheres the G drive?
Gone gone gone.

Warranty replaced the physical drive.
Overnight backup replaced 100% of the data.
 
Surely, but, there's 3 hard drives in my PC and I couldn't be sure which one is making noises.
I use a screwdriver or a plastic chopstick as a sounding rod and press one end against each drive, with the other end pressed against my ear lobe. The drive with the loudest clicking/grinding noise is usually the source. If in doubt power down and disconnect all drives bar one, then power on and listen.

The SMART that time was good for each one. Only today It got detected.
I don't place much reliance in basic S.M.A.R.T. data to catch failing drives. They can be fine one day and dead the next with no warning.

S.M.A.R.T. is more useful if it notifies me of Pending Sectors and I manage to do something about it in time.

You can run short and long S.M.A.R.T. tests periodically, if you want to check the health of your drives.

On my TrueNAS Core servers, I can run scrub tests and short/long S.M.A.R.T. tests. It's a question of how pro-active you want to be, or just wait until things fail.
https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/scrub-and-smart-testing-schedules.20108/

I use Hard Disk Sentinel's surface read test to check all new and second hand drives. It takes 1 to 2 hours per Terabyte on a typical hard disk and the surface map is easy to read.
https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/61_surfacetest.html

I'd treat this drive as junk.

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