So yes magnets on a running hard drive will destroy it. I opened the drive and head had indeed put a scratch across the platter and was stuck in a weird position. After that tried to boot up and got the click of death. I heard a clunk then the screen went black just like the OP said. so then I decided to stick on the drive when it was running. I took a very powerful magnet and stuck it to a hard drive when it was off, moved it all around and then booted machine. The hard drive is usually fine if you put a magnet around it when it is off. We theorized on this all the time in college, so when I go my first IT job I tested it. Nope it actually like other posters have said it damages the hard drive and can scratch the platters. If the bits were gone off the hard drive it would initialize fine but still be unable to load the OS.īut either way as Bill said "It's dead Jim". Also the clicking sound is the heads snapping back on a reset. The increasing noise was probably the bearing or dive motor going out in the drive. Its more likely the hard drive had a mechanical failure here. If magnetism destroys hard drives, how can this be? This would indicate loose and disconnected components inside the drive and are beyond the scope or intent of this article.But wait, have you ever taken apart a hard drive? There is a crazy strong magnet inside all rotating hard drives which move the heads. Check that you don't hear any rattling noises when you rotate the drive gently (back and forth) through 90 degrees.
Fix damaged hard drive head free#
If you can hear a rhythmic "click" in time with the movement, the chances are that the drive heads are free on their mounts and are not jammed.Can you hear head movement now? If yes, re-attach the drive to your computer, and try accessing the drive. If anything was still alive on your hard drive, it would now be totally and finally dead. This is drastic of course but may help free the heads from any binding.
If there's a power surge or a component failure on that board, your drive will stop working, but only because it doesn't know what to do next.
Fix damaged hard drive head Pc#
Sometimes, it's not the drive that's dead, but the PC board that controls its operation (on the underside of the drive).