Member Avatar for chaoticabyss99

I think my laptop hdd has failed, even though it's only 3-3.5 years old. I took the hdd out and put it in an external hdd enclosure and connected it to my desktop. It still makes a clicking noise and my desktop doesn't show it in My Computer. But, I can see it in the boot menu and in device manager under disk management. Is there any way to get the data of this hdd?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by XP78USER

Dani AI

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Building on the original report from and the community replies by and , here is a concise, practical recovery-first plan that avoids common DIY mistakes and preserves the best chance of getting files back.

First priority: make a read-only, sector-by-sector image of the failing drive and work from that image. Prefer attaching the drive to a desktop internal SATA port (not a USB enclosure) so the OS can see errors and the drive gets stable power. Use a Linux live USB and GNU ddrescue to image to a separate, healthy drive. Example (replace device and paths):

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /mnt/recovery/drive-image.img /mnt/recovery/ddrescue.log
sudo ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /mnt/recovery/drive-image.img /mnt/recovery/ddrescue.log

Explanation: the first pass copies good sectors quickly; the second retries bad areas. Keep the ddrescue log — it allows safe resume and incremental recovery. Check SMART data (often only available over direct SATA) with smartctl -a /dev/sdX to gather diagnostics without writing to the disk.

After a successful image, perform recovery on the image file only. Use TestDisk to scan for lost partitions and PhotoRec or file-carving tools to extract files from the image. Avoid running CHKDSK, Windows repair tools, or any write operations on the original device; those can make recovery harder. If ddrescue cannot make a usable image or mechanical noise persists, stop further DIY attempts and consult a professional clean-room recovery service — additional spin-ups can permanently reduce the chance of recovery.

Summary: prioritize one controlled imaging attempt (internal SATA + ddrescue), analyze the image offline, and escalate to pros for critical data if imaging fails.

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Member Avatar for XP78USER

Yep your HDD has fried itself with the infamous click of death. You might get some luck sending it to a Data Repair Centre but yet again it's too expensive. Anyway a 1TB HDD only cost about $60-$90 so you might be able to replace it, but you might need to install Windows on it again which can be a pain if you don't have a spare computer to put it on a USB stick.

Good Luck though and hope your laptop and/or Desktop gets fixed soon.

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

Yep - The click of death. You can try putting the HD in the freezer for an hour then retrying to read data.... Seriously this sometimes works...but it's probably dead.

Best do what xp78user said, buy a new HD, load an OS, and restore your files.

Member Avatar for chaoticabyss99

Thanks for the info fellas!

Member Avatar for XP78USER

The click of death happens if you've bumped, hit, or dropped the hard drive rendering it unreadable. Putting it in a freezer won't help either because when taken out of the freezer it will start creating water that will soak your hard drive. Anyway im heading in the same direction as my new rig had barely any thermal paste and the CPU got damaged.

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