Hard drive clicking for 16 times during startup

Backup. Backup. Backup.

(Just to be sure you hear me).

According with datacent ^[1] this is the sound of a Toshiba laptop drive with bad heads making clicking or sweeping sound on boot up. ^[s2]. This one ^[s6] instead it is not the record of a motorbike but what you risk to listen in a near future. ^{(see note).}

As spotted before the clicks you are listening at the start-up are the sounds produced by the heads in the attempt to align properly. If you listen each time exactly 16 times it means that this the limit defined in its firmware. It stops because continuing it will break more quickly (or it can scratch the surface of the disk creating problems more difficult to be solved).

It can be generated by a mechanical failure, incoming or just come, as well as by an inadequate power supply. It means that it is getting to be broken or is not getting enough power to fully spin up.

If there are no reason to think that the cable is faulty, or not securely plugged, this lack of power can be due to the computer power supply if you recently added other devices (or substituted) and you have increased the overall request. But in a laptop this is a rare case.

As alternative it can be the laptop power supply that is ending its life, rare too if compared with the average life of an HDD.

The fact that this problem is becoming more frequent usually means that a bigger one or an irreparable one is approaching.

If you want to be sure you can try to identify the sound of your HDD ^{[1] [3]} and the problem you are up to face giving some interpretation to the SMART^[4] report ^[5] you provide.

An HDD will not break only because the disk surface is damaged, but even because the head can be: check for example on the wikipedia page about SMART ^[4] which data is reported as potential indicators of imminent electromechanical failure, but remember that many of those indicators are not absolute ones. In general an increasing value spots a problem even if not reported as a red one.

^{Note
The links with an s are sounds in mp3 format and you may need to download to listen or to go to the reference page [1] .}

ps> Did I just said you? Backup, now.

Clicking indicates a mechanical problem with the drive, or a faulty platter where the heads cannot align properly. They are seeking to the limit defined by the drive's firmware. The drive is defective; time to get a replacement.

Looking at your text and comments, I think you may misunderstand what a "hard drive is". The hard drive is the bit inside the computer which stores the information, not the laptop itself.

You need to replace the hard drive in the laptop - which is probably worth about US$50-US$100 excluding labour - you don't need to replace the whole laptop.

[ I get the impression you misunderstand because you quote the hard drive as "samsung NP300E5Z-AOJIN 750GB" - which is a laptop model, rather then the actual hard drive - which is displayed in the CrystalDiskInfo snapshot, but too small for me to read).