The fault · noise from the drive
When the noise begins, the data on the platters is normally still intact. Everything lost after that is lost afterwards. A head with no fix on its position parks, sets off across the surface, misses, parks and sets off once more, and it will repeat that for as long as the socket is live. Each attempt is one more chance of touching the platter. Take the power away, wherever in Plymouth the drive is sitting, and the count stops there.
You will be talking to an engineer
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| What happens | What that points to | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A tick roughly once a second that will not stop | The arm has to steer by servo marks put down at the factory. It cannot read them, so it retreats to the ramp and makes the approach over again | Take the power off |
| A thin beep, usually from a 2.5" portable | Nothing rotates at all. Either the spindle bearing has jammed or the heads have bonded to the surface | Do not tap it or shake it |
| A harsh rasp or grind | A head is down on the platter. Damage is being done as it runs | Every second running costs more files |
| A brief chirp at each start-up | Calibration failing, usually after a drop | Power it down, leave it |
| Several clicks, then silence | It abandons it, resets and runs the sequence again | Unplug it and break the cycle |
| It clicks on certain files only | One head has failed, or one band of surface is damaged | Stop copying and get it imaged |
Whatever arrives is booked in under a case number on the day it reaches the bench. An engineer then works out the actual fault, and that part is free. You get a plain answer on what can come off the drive and what cannot, followed by one price in writing. Nothing further happens until you have read it and agreed.
No power goes near it until the mechanism and the surfaces of the platters have had a proper look. Should a noisy unit need running at all, it goes on in bursts of a few seconds with an engineer beside it, and is never left turning by itself.
The failed head stack comes out and a donor set matched to it is fitted. A locked spindle is freed. Heads lying down on the platter are lifted away without scoring it. Only then is the drive asked for a full image, and for nothing else.
A hardware imager reads gently, stepping past whatever stalls and returning to the awkward regions once the easy sectors are safe, until the copy holds everything the disk will still surrender. Every later step runs against that copy; your own drive is never written to.
Thinking it over costs you nothing. Everything the drive gave up is listed for you before any invoice exists, and the bill only follows your go-ahead. Files travel back on media bought in for your job, with return carriage paid at this end, and the case stays on the bench until you confirm they open on your own computer.
This page has one instruction, and it is stop. Head and platter are separated by nanometres while the disk spins thousands of times a minute, and nothing made to that tolerance repairs itself. Of all the noisy drives that come in here, what separates a good result from a poor one is the speed somebody reached the plug.
It arrived from a shop on Mutley Plain, ticking once a second, holding five years of accounts. Two donor stacks later, an image was left to run at whatever pace it liked, and the books opened again with the VAT return still owing.
Probably not. A click reports that the heads cannot find their way; it says nothing whatever about the platters beneath them, and the platters hold your files. Donor heads and a patient, unhurried image usually bring back the greater part. What actually costs you data is the running time after the noise began.
None. That tip predates every drive you are likely to own. Cooling a sealed unit draws moisture inside and contracts the metalwork; when it comes back to room temperature you are left with condensation, the beginnings of corrosion and a second mechanical fault on top of the first.
The heads set off to find the servo marks written at the factory, cannot pick them up, withdraw to the ramp and start over. Repeated, that is the sound. Heard from outside the case, a bent head, a preamplifier on its way out and a scored platter are indistinguishable. Only opening the drive on the bench separates them.
None that helps. Anything the program requests must still travel through heads that have already failed, so all it achieves is holding the drive at the one task that is destroying it.
The diagnosis is free, and it comes back as a list: which files read, which do not, and what getting them off would take. Until then, leave the drive unplugged.