What is the cause of a hard-drive which suffers the click-of-death? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

The "click of death", in hard drives, isn't a single specific problem. It's a symptom which is often displayed by a failed hard drive -- the "click" is the sound of the drive resetting the heads after it fails to read data from the disk. This can be for any number of reasons: it can happen if the heads or the amplifier circuitry on the arm are damaged, if the receiver on the logic board is not working properly, if the disk is missing calibration data, if the drive is not spinning at the right speed, if the drive is failing to read its firmware from the disk... it can really be the result of almost any fault.

Do not try to transplant heads between drives. This was sometimes possible in the past, but tolerances in modern hardware have shrunk to the point that it's no longer possible to remove and replace the heads by hand. You will damage the heads, and the surface of the disk, if you attempt to do so.

If you believe that the mechanical components of your hard drive have been damaged, and you want to recover the drive's contents, contact a professional drive recovery service. Anything you do will only make the damage worse, and may render it unrecoverable even by a professional.