Sounds of a Bad Hard Drive or Going Bad IF YOU ARE HEARING ANY OF THE SOUNDS BELOW COMING FROM YOUR COMPUTER THEN TURN OFF THE COMPUTER A.S.A.P., YOUR DATA DEPENDS ON IT! If your drive is clicking, grinding, or making unusual sounds, it is very important that you shut down the computer immediately.  These sounds can very well be the read/write heads physically hitting or scraping the platters of the hard drive.  Severe or complete data loss can result from this.  DON'T RISK IT!  This applies too as well if your drive has been exposed to fire, flood, physical shock (earthquake), etc. Sounds of a physically failing hard drive are: (To listen to the sound files below, you will need Apple's QuickTime installed.) Bad Bearings:  Continuous screeching across a chalk board. Cycle Clicking:  Sounds like rapid clicks, stops, and does it again. Excessive Clicking:  Rapid clicking that sounds like tapping a pencil on the table (annoying). Grinding:  Sound of metal being ground away (can squeal loudly) Ray Gun:  Sounds like it is from a cartoon space cadet type gun. Remember that hard drives are very sensitive to static electricity and physical jarring or jolts.  Handle them like a new born baby, gently.  Always unplug the power before removing the hard drive or any component inside a computer.  Discharge yourself by grounding to the metal of the computer chassis or a static strap to a grounded object. If you are certain that the above is your situation, then contact a reputable data recovery service like Drive Savers.  The first attempt at recovering your critical, sensitiv  data is always the best.  Don't fool around with software recovery tools if your drive is physically failing.  It is a really bad idea, you will only further damage the drive and further lose your data.