My computer used to make a clicking noise and now it wont detect my HARD DRIVE!?

Question

my computer used to make a clicking noise in the tower unit and the computer would slow down when it did so. sometimes the clickingnoise would go berserk and then a blue screen would show up saying that a 'crucial thread' was missing. usually i would just restart it and thenit would go back to normal until the clicking started again!

a few days ago, i had to restart the computer and then it just said on the startup screen that no hard drive could be found!

since then, i have bought a new hard drive and connected it and the same message still comes up.

what could the problem be?

i had windows media centre edition installed abd i havent done anything to the hard drive yet.i havent lost any files because i also keep an external hard drive. I DONT KNOW HOW TO FORMAT THE HARD DRIVE!:(

Answer 1

I'm a level 2 tech. Whenever we hear the "clicking" noise at work, we know that a hard drive is dying. If you think about it, the only thing that could be clicking in a computer would have to be a moving part. Something moves and hits something else, causing a sound. The only things inside of a computer that have moving parts are the fans, the hard drive, and your CD drives. Your fan would not click, it would buzz since it is spinning so fast. And it's not your CD drives, because they weren't even in use at the time. The clicking you hear it probably coming from one of the arms inside of your hard drive. The arm moves across the surface of the disk as it spins, and reads the data.

As far as your new hard drive not showing up, are you absolutely you installed it properly? Did you make sure the jumpers on the back were set correctly? Are you sure it is in correct location on the IDE ribbon (Assuming it's an IDE hard drive)? Feel free to email me [e-mail]

Answer 2

The problem here is that your Hard Disk drive has died / failed.

Unfortunately, with this untimely death of your Hard Disk drive most probably all the files and programs that you had installed in it, are gone too. There may be some slight chance that you may be able to recover your files if you are able, somehow to get it to boot again.

If there is no which way this is possible then the only option you have ( if you need those files from you Computer) is to get professional help.

If you only want to use the computer again then you can buy a good quality Hard Disk Drive, install it with the Operating System of your choice and use it.

Good Luck.

Answer 3

I don't know if you're too young to remember this... but..

The clicking sound was exactly like the loud popping sounds one would hear when listening to your favorite song on a vinyl record (33 or 45 speed) remember those.. maybe not.. once you had a "pop/crack" in a part of the song... it was a horrible thing.. that usually led to you having to clean the vinyl record with expensive cleaning solution..and often you had to just buy a new record

Your hard drive is pretty much the same thing... It's a record that spins and as the "needle" (in this case the HD Head(s) or lasers)passes over certain parts of your hard drive .. informatoin is gathered for processing by the CPU and turns it into what you see on your screen...

If a part of that disk went bad, as suggested by the answerer above... a physical error on your disk... then that's causing a bad "pop" for you..and the information can't be processed..

Ok.. just saw that you bought a new HD. Did you check the PIN settings..this is a physical check.. PIN 1 is it enabled or disabled?

It sounds like there's a physical break in communication somewhere between your CPU and the HD...that's why I'm saying check the PIN Settings.

Answer 4

Your hard drive is most likely FAILING!!

If you can get your computer to start, backup any files you can to floppy or CD. If you have Windows XP, use the file and settings transfer wizard. Start, Programs, Accessories, System tools, File and settings Transfer Wizard. Save the file it creates to CD.

If you can't get Windows to boot, you can use "The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows." Use another PC with a CD burner for this. You will need the Windows XP installation CD for this as the website can not give out free copies of Windows. Download the program and use the instructions on the website to create the boot CD.

Boot your PC using the boot CD you made.

It has many recovory programs. It has a program to operate your CD burner. Save what you can.

If you can't access your hard drive, a trick is to remove your hard drive and place it in a freezer for a couple of hours. Place your drive back in the PC and try again. I have about a 50% success rate using this trick.

Unfortunately, sometimes hard drives juss fail and you are screwed. You lose everything and there is not much you can do about it.

After you backup what data you can, you need to remove your hard drive and use the new drive you just bought. I wouldn't suggest making an image of your old drive as it is most likely already corrupt. You will copy the problems from your old drive to your new one.

Using the CDs that came with your PC, reinstall all of your programs. If you have Windows XP and were able to run the file and settings transfer wizard, run the program on your new Windows installation and transfer your old files back to your new hard drive. If you jist copied files to a CD, now is the time to copy them back to your hard drive.

Answer 5

Well your first problem was your hard drive went out.
The second is when you put in a new hard drive you must first partition it.
Now you have a brand new hard drive, with no operating system. That is the system that tells your computer what to do.
Not knowing what Microsoft sys you had ie. windows 98,2000, xp whatever, I can't tell you much more.
If you do not know how to partition and load an operating sys.
I would suggest you load you computer up and head for the nearest computer repair shop.

Answer 6

the clicking noise was probably your hard drive giving up the ghost

new hard drive installed go to control panel click admininstritive tools click computer management then disk management look down if you see new hard drive right click it and then click active to bring it online your system should see it now you also can format disc and partition it at this point.

Answer 7

Losing data on a hard drive is the worst nightmare of any computer owner. However, some hard drive problems can be easily fixed yourself by using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful

Answer 8

the clicking sound was a warning your hard drive had a physical problem you should have backed up your files and installed a new one immediatly sorry for your loss
if it dosnt find your new drive check the jumper settings in the drive make sure they are set the same as the old one

Answer 9

the clicking would usually indicate the arm on the hard drive is struggling to find the spot - your hard drive is dying - you have done the right thing getting a new one....
is the new one set to master?
try going into the bios on boot and seeing if you can detect the drive.

Answer 10

your original hard drive has died, sorry, clicking computers usually mean HD probs! I would guess that putting a new hard drive in won't help unless you've actually formatted it and installed a system, assuming the broken one was your boot drive.