Why is clicking drive not recognized by controler?

[greatking]

Hello,

I have a SATA laptop drive that spins up and then starts clicking. This means that the head cannot find its home. It also means that the drive's electronics are working. However, the drive is not detected by the system. What steps have to be completed before the drive tells the controler: "I am here"?

 

[RealBeast]

That clicking is likely the "click of death," with the head assembly hitting the limiters, indicating a probable catastrophic drive failure so I wouldn't expect it to be useable.

I've never found any of the online remedies, like the freezer, to work.

 

[fzabkar]

After a drive spins up, it attempts to retrieve its runtime firmware from a hidden System Area (SA) on the platters. If the drive clicks, then the problem could be a corrupted formware module (very common in WDs and Seagates), a bad head, or a bad preamplifier. The latter is mounted on the head stack inside the HDA.

Certain WD models (eg WD5000AAKS and other "Tornado" models) suffer from an MCU fault which mimics a head or media problem.

 

[greatking]

Best answer selected by greatking.