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My external hard drive began rattling so loudly it sounded like a motorcycle was in my living room. I immediately turned it off, let it cool down and tried turning it back on - it made the same noise. My external holds 500gb and I am currently using 100+. All of this data is important and I don't know what to do. Anyone have any suggestions? How to I stop the rattling? It my data lost? Where would I take something like this to get fixed?

Thanks in advance.
-Rachel:'(

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For : a loud rattling almost always means a mechanical failure inside the drive — bearings, heads, or platters making contact. Because you already heard the noise, every additional spin risks further damage. If the data is irreplaceable, stop powering the unit and avoid opening the enclosure: dust and fingerprints will ruin any chance of a clean-room repair. was right to push for a quick assessment, but SMART and consumer shops are limited when the failure is physical.

If you must do a quick triage at home, try only these non-invasive steps first: swap the USB cable and port, and try the drive on a different computer to rule out the enclosure electronics or a flaky USB bridge. If the noise is clearly internal metal-on-metal, don’t keep spinning it. Photograph the drive label (model/serial) and keep the enclosure and drive together — that information helps recovery specialists.

If the drive mounts and you can read files, don’t drag-and-drop everything. Prioritize the most critical files first, then make a full block image to a different physical disk using a tool that tolerates bad sectors (for example GNU ddrescue). Example Linux workflow (run from a Live USB, replace device and paths as appropriate):

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /media/backup/drive.img rescue.log
sudo ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /media/backup/drive.img rescue.log

The first pass copies all good sectors quickly; the second pass does controlled retries. Store the image and log on a separate drive with enough space.

If the files are valuable and the drive is noisy, contact a professional data-recovery service — they have clean-room facilities and head/platter replacement tools. Expect a diagnostic and quote; recovery can be costly but is often the only way to retrieve data after a mechanical failure. Finally, once this is resolved, set up a 3-2-1 backup routine so a single drive failure can’t put you in the same spot again.

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Member Avatar for dcc

Hi Rachel, and welcome to DaniWeb.

This is not good news, this is usually indicative of a failing hdd. If it still works start transferring the files you want to save either to another hdd or DVD. Usually when they start making this kind of noise they are on the way out.

Look in your BIOS and see if the SMART feature is enabled and see what it says regarding that drive. The SMART is a industry standard self-diagnostic system built into the hdd, if it says SMART bad it is dying.

Member Avatar for radicalkibitzer

Where is a good place for me to go to find help with this? Is there some way that someone can physucally look at it? I have no idea where I'd take it to get fixed. Would Best Buy or Circuit City work? Thank you for your response.

Member Avatar for dcc

Usually when a hdd dies it is usually because of a board failure, or what I suspect in your case is a physical problem with the disc. For that there is not repair.

As I said, if it still works back up your important files and be prepared for it to fail. You should be able to transfer your important files to you internal drive provided you have enough free space left.

Best Buy and Circuit City won't be able to do anything more than what I have suggested you do, of course they can and will do it for you for a price.

As for replacing it instructions for formating and partitioning a new hdd to replace you external one can be provided it you need.

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