Your computer is making noises it didn't used to

Clicking and grinding: act immediately

A rhythmic click, often described as a tick, a knock, or "the click of death", is the read head of a mechanical hard drive failing to find its position and resetting. Grinding is worse: that's physical contact where there shouldn't be any.

Both mean the drive is failing right now, while it's powered. This is not a problem that waits for a convenient moment.

Switch it off. Don't turn it back on to check. Every additional spin-up costs you data, and the reflex to verify the noise is still happening is the single most expensive thing people do at this point.

What not to do

• Don't run recovery software on it. Consumer tools read the disk relentlessly. On a mechanically failing drive that's the fastest way to turn a recoverable situation into an unrecoverable one. This is how most permanently lost data gets lost.
• Don't restart it repeatedly. Each spin-up risks more damage.
• Don't put it in the freezer. This advice has circulated online for twenty years. It doesn't work, and condensation adds a second problem.
• Don't open the drive. The platters need a clean environment. Opening it in a normal room contaminates it permanently.
• Don't keep using the computer hoping it settles down. It won't.

What we can do

We use professional recovery hardware rather than software, which lets us image a failing drive sector by sector and then work from that image rather than from your deteriorating original. That's the approach that gives you the best odds, and it's the specific reason a proper recovery differs from running an app.

Recovery is $400 flat per drive with no fee if we can't recover your files, and a free evaluation first. For $50 we can collect the machine from anywhere in the Edmonton area so it doesn't have to travel with you.

Noises that aren't an emergency

Whooshing or whirring that rises and falls is fans, responding to temperature. Normal, though if it's become constant and loud, dust-clogged cooling is likely and the machine will be throttling itself.

A high-pitched whine under load is usually coil whine from electronics. Annoying, generally harmless.

Rattling or buzzing that changes when you nudge the case is normally a failing fan bearing or a loose cable touching a blade. Worth fixing, not urgent.

Faint ticking from a mechanical drive during normal activity can be ordinary operation. The difference is rhythm: regular, repeating, and continuing when the machine is idle is the bad kind.

If you're not sure which you're hearing

Err on the side of caution. Switch it off and ask us. A five-minute phone call costs nothing, and the downside of guessing wrong on a clicking drive is permanent.

Work through it yourself

Our free troubleshooter asks a few questions and narrows down the likely cause, then gives you steps to try. At the end you can copy the summary, email it, or share the link with your own technician or a family member. Nothing to install, and no email required.