Laptop HDD clicking noise. Please help.

[Nekhetyo]

Hello there.

My laptop's hard drive started clicking some days ago, and have been going on and on. The sound is almost like when you roll your tongue and click in your mouth. And sometimes when it happens, my computer freezes up for a couple of seconds, and then resumes without a problem. Will this get worse and should I replace my HDD before it completely fails, or is it more of a software issue and I should re install Windows.

I've tried to do some disk checks via CMD but nothing happened on reboot, and the scan said the drive was NOT dirty. I've also performed a full virus scan and a defragmentation. Nothing seems to fix it. I encrypted my /D partition of the HDD and then it all happened. Don't know if this is a side effect though..

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and my HDD is a S-ATA SAMSUNG HM320JI model.

[Nejji]

Sounds to me like the drive is just dying.

[theclone]

Clicking is a pretty clear indication of a failed HDD, I would try and back up your data as quickly as possible, before the damage is any worse.

Clicking generally can be a bad motor, or the read/write head hitting the platters on your drive, never a good thing. Keeping the drive running will generaly only make things worse.

[masterkiller]

Clicking is definitely bad, but on a laptop it's sometimes hard to determine where the sound is coming from. Before doing any further scans, definitely back up all your data. Then take the hard drive out of the computer, and turn the computer on. If it doesnt make the sound any more, replace the HDD. If it does, it's probably a fan.