Modern hard drives don’t make that much noise, and any noise is normally drowned out by the machine’s fan. So a strange noise coming from your drive doesn’t necessarily mean a trip to the hard drive recovery lab.
As your machine boots up and the hard drive starts to spin, it’s perfectly normal to hear a low frequency whining noise. Similarly, during read/write operations and intensive work, you might hear a bit more noise than usual. There are several reasons that could be causing your computer to make an out of the ordinary grinding noise, but the main two are problems with the fan or the hard drive. Getting to the bottom of it is important because both require very different solutions – and obviously, only one might lead to you needing hard drive recovery
There may be something large obstructing the fan. Small pieces of dust that accumulate around the fan will be blown away when the machine starts up; most laptops and desktops power the fans up at a higher speed for the first few seconds to dislodge anything that has collected around the blades. Anything large is easy to spot by simply opening up your machine and inspecting the fan. This will sound much worse than it is, and if you’ve diagnosed a fan problem, you can breath a sign of relief that you won’t be needing hard drive recovery at the moment.
Another possible reason for unknown grinding noises is much more serious – your hard drive. This is important to distinguish, as further usage of your hard drive could lead to a hefty hard drive recovery bill. If you have ascertained that it isn’t a problem with your fan, the likelihood is that there’s something wrong with your hard drive. In this instance it’s advisable to immediately backup your data. It could be that your hard drive is about to fail, so make sure you save any precious data. A grinding noise is a symptom of a loose part, and this is never a good thing. When parts become loose, they can scratch the disk and cause potentially irreversible data loss or making the chance of a good hard drive recovery slim. It could be something like a head crash, or even a motor failure. In these instances, it's best to power down your hard drive and consult a professional hard drive recovery expert.
At Data Recovery Specialists, we can diagnose faults with hard disk drives and provide an initial diagnosis and quote for hard drive recovery – and it’s all no-obligation.
