HDD CLICKING.. ABOUT TO FAIL?

[james1758]

Hi all,

I first noticed my hard drive 'clicking' about a year/ 6months ago(?), recently it has been clicking a lot more, maybe once every 5mins? Sometimes multiple clicks in a row!

Is my HDD about to fail??

The laptop is fairly old now and I've had it throughout my teenage years so its taken a beating; it's horrendously slow, getting the beach ball every 5mins (literally), and sounds like its about to take off (cleaning the fans no longer helps).

Despite this, the laptop still does its job and I'm a student so money is tight. I'll buy a new mac in a year or so.

I presume now is the time to replace the HDD with an SSD, and I'm hoping this will in turn make my laptop run slightly smoother as well??

James.
[doublepost=1459715752][/doublepost]Oh also, the main reason I made this thread was that my laptop screen stayed black for about 5mins after being in sleep mode, it wouldn't respond when I clicked the trackpad/ keys. Was slightly worrying.

 

[AFEPPL]

The head actuator may click or knock as the drive repetitively tries to recover from one or more errors.
Yes, id look to move quickly before it becomes too late.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hi all,

I first noticed my hard drive 'clicking' about a year/ 6months ago(?), recently it has been clicking a lot more, maybe once every 5mins? Sometimes multiple clicks in a row!

Is my HDD about to fail??

The laptop is fairly old now and I've had it throughout my teenage years so its taken a beating; it's horrendously slow, getting the beach ball every 5mins (literally), and sounds like its about to take off (cleaning the fans no longer helps).

Despite this, the laptop still does its job and I'm a student so money is tight. I'll buy a new mac in a year or so.

I presume now is the time to replace the HDD with an SSD, and I'm hoping this will in turn make my laptop run slightly smoother as well??

James.
[doublepost=1459715752][/doublepost]Oh also, the main reason I made this thread was that my laptop screen stayed black for about 5mins after being in sleep mode, it wouldn't respond when I clicked the trackpad/ keys. Was slightly worrying.

Almost certainly. Verify by downloading SMART Utility if you're on OS X (versions earlier than 10.9 here), or if you're on Windows, you can check by downloading HD Tune Pro here and checking the health tab.

 

[james1758]

The head actuator may click or knock as the drive repetitively tries to recover from one or more errors.
Yes, id look to move quickly before it becomes too late.

Thanks for the reply, I'll move myself over to amazon now!
[doublepost=1459717382][/doublepost]

Almost certainly. Verify by downloading SMART Utility if you're on OS X (versions earlier than 10.9 here), or if you're on Windows, you can check by downloading HD Tune Pro here and checking the health tab.

Quick question, would you recommend repairing the disk through DiskUtility before cloning the HDD?

Or will this make absolutely no difference as I'm going to replace that HDD with an SSD anyways?

 

[Gav2k]

Thanks for the reply, I'll move myself over to amazon now!
[doublepost=1459717382][/doublepost]
Quick question, would you recommend repairing the disk through DiskUtility before cloning the HDD?

Or will this make absolutely no difference as I'm going to replace that HDD with an SSD anyways?

Reading the smart info for the drive will tell you if it's about to fail. Personally if I notice a drive becoming noisy or performance dropping off its cloaned and dumped.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Thanks for the reply, I'll move myself over to amazon now!
[doublepost=1459717382][/doublepost]
Quick question, would you recommend repairing the disk through DiskUtility before cloning the HDD?

Or will this make absolutely no difference as I'm going to replace that HDD with an SSD anyways?

Honestly I wouldn't do a direct clone from a corrupted HDD. At the most IMHO, install fresh OS to SSD and then use Migration Assistant or drag/drop from the old HDD to recover your data.

 

[simonsi]

Clicking from a previously-silent drive is NEVER a good sign.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

You didn't tell us -which- MacBook you have.

If it has a replaceable 2.5" SATA drive inside, then it's time to put an SSD into it.

I'd suggest either a Crucial or a Sandisk Plus, 240gb size is very affordable, 480gb if you need more space.

Go to ifixit.com to see a repair/installation guide.
One other thing -- be sure to buy and use THE RIGHT TOOLS for the job...

 

[Weaselboy]

Quick question, would you recommend repairing the disk through DiskUtility before cloning the HDD?

No... don't do that. Running disk repair on a failing drive can actually make it worse and cause data loss. If you have not already, you should make yourself a backup of your data on an external drive.