A beeping or chattering noise emanating from within your drive could be indicative that the spindle motor has failed.
A hard drive’s spindle motor is key to its functioning, and allows the drive’s magnetic platters to spin at incredibly fast speeds. Modern hard drives typically spin at around 7200 RPM, but enterprise-class drives can reach speeds of 15,000 RPM. The spindle motor is located on the underside of the hard disk drive. If it’s showing signs of damage, you should immediately power down your hard drive, as persisting with its use could make data recovery impossible.
Like all internal components within a hard drive, the spindle motor is incredibly fragile, and physical trauma such as a drop is probably the most common cause of hard drive motor failure our data recovery team see. Alternatively, the spindle motor can just fail due to natural wear and tear; like all mechanical devices, hard drives don’t last forever.
The spindle motor in a hard drive rests on top of ball bearings, and if they are not sufficiently lubricated, can cause fraction, which can cause the motor to burn out, Hard drives are very carefully sealed, although they do have a small hole to ensure pressure is the same inside and outside the drive. Over time, this small hole can become blocked by contaminants, compromising the spindle motor’s ball bearings.
A motor failure can be diagnosed simply by listening to the hard drive. If there is beeping, chattering or grinding noise, this could be indicative of a failed motor. In this instance, do not try and fix the problem yourself – DIY data recovery can often make the problem even worse, and potentially cause your data to be lost forever. Instead, you should consult a professional data recovery specialist. Our data recovery library contains over 14,000 parts, and our hard drive recovery team are experienced with dealing with motor failures.
