Clicking sounds

[extremis]

Clicking sounds is a common problem with hard disks, meaning that heads are unable to position themselves. But what is the reason for this (bad heads, firmware, etc.)?

[Old Tech]

Clicking sounds is a common problem with hard disks, meaning that heads are unable to position themselves. But what is the reason for this (bad heads, firmware, etc.)?

there is a good article on the basics of hard drive operation here:
http://www.acelab.ru/products/pc-en/art ... index.html. If you read through it carefully, it should answer your questions.

I'm still new to this but I've spent a lot of hours reading and translating from Russian. I have also had good advice from people who know a lot more about hard drive repair. I'm an electronics technician who has worked on hard drives many years ago, and that has helped. Still, it's difficult to answer a question like yours in anything other than generalizations.

When a system is powered on (booted), the hard drive goes through a process of initialization independent of the operating system (OS) or the motherboard BIOS. It has it's own microprocessor with it's own BIOS-type ROM. Printers do the same thing. You may have sent a print command to a printer only to wait while it does it's own internal diagnostics. The hard drive will not reach a 'ready' state until it completes that initialization and it wont be available to the system OS or BIOS till it does so.

Before the heads are loaded onto the disk, the drive is running from the information in it's microprocessor's ROM (firmware). Some drives, like the Maxtor, have additional firmware stored on the disk. It can't read this firmware unless the heads can load and read the tracks. The ticking you hear is due to a corruption in the process of loading the heads.

The article I referenced above will explain that process in more detail. Basically, the ticking is due to the heads going out to read data from the track and not being able to do so. It then retracts and hits an end stop at it's parking position. It repeats this process, based on it's program, till it times out. In some cases, however, like the one I have encountered, the heads are not hitting the end stop, but are seeking back and forth between two tracks. I recognize that sound and it's more of a pumping action than a ticking. I made drives do that intentionally on older systems using a program entered into the processor in the Basic language.

The heads may not be able to read for several reasons. At least, they may be reading physically, but the data is not getting back to the processor on the drive electronics board. That could be due to damaged firmware on the disk, a damaged/scratched surface, the heads themselves, the preamplifier attached to the head mechanism, or the drive electronics board.

[extremis]

Thank you Old Tech for your great information.
Now, the question is how one could determine where exactly is the problem. If one does not have a known good identical PCB to test (to rule out PCB damage), is there any other method to find out whether it is a PCB, HDA or firmware problem?

[Old Tech]

Thank you Old Tech for your great information.
Now, the question is how one could determine where exactly is the problem. If one does not have a known good identical PCB to test (to rule out PCB damage), is there any other method to find out whether it is a PCB, HDA or firmware problem?

The only accurate way from a hardware point of view is to troubleshoot the electronics on the board. Everything you need is there on the board. Unfortunately, manufacturers like Maxtor refuse to cooperate in helping people with vital information. It would help immensely to have information on the chips on the board and on the microcode.

It's still not impossible, however. It would be preferable to have a high-bandwidth storage oscilloscope, or the equivalent type that works on a computer. The need for that is to be able to analyze waveforms coming from the heads, that are a representation of data on the disk. I have found from years as a technician that you can develop techniques to get around that. I have a couple of other articles on the forum that might help.

I started out with that approach but it takes a huge amount of time to gain an understanding of what is going on in the circuit. In the meantime, I got sidetracked with a software (firmware) approach due to time-constraints. I needed the data. That urgency has passed and I don't feel any pressure to learn the hardware approach. I'll save it for a rainy day.

Let's just say, that you need to have good advice on a firmware approach from someone with experience. I'm not that person, unfortunately, but there are good people on this forum who can help. I don't feel at liberty to hand out their names, or to impose on them to help other people. There are other people in the forum who are obviously in the data recovery business and seem to think there knowledge is a trade secret. I don't agree with that approach because I have always been ready to help someone who is trying to learn. But that's their business.

The best approach is to start studying and present your findings on the forum, or other forums, asking for advice. I think people are more inclined to help if they know you are trying to learn by putting in the time. There are many requests on the forum by poorly informed people who ask questions along the lines of a device for flashing the memory on hard drives. Anyone who does even a minimal amount of research quickly learns there are no such devices, and they understand why.

Your best resource is Google, or an equivalent search engine. Most stuff you'll need is out there in one form or another. Just learn how to use a search engine and be patient. On Google, you can use + signs in front of items you want and - signs in front of things to exclude. I quickly learned to put - signs in front of 'recovery', or even the phrase -"data recovery". Most of them are feeding you tidbits of information to suck you in to using their services.

You'll also find that much of the good information is in Russian. A good online translator helps. I used two of them and compared the results between them. Some Chinese sites are good but many of them are pushing a Chinese copy of the PC3000 from Acelabs.

[tonyht]

hi old tech.
it's nice to see your information again..
thanks a lot for teaching us about hdd tech.
btw, can u show us where is the russian site to learn about hdd repair and data recovery. cause I already try find it using google, but didn't get any luck finding the site for hdd repair and recovery.
very thanks if you can show us where we can find the article..

thanksss again old tech, you're the best.. hehehe

[Old Tech]

can u show us where is the russian site to learn about hdd repair and data recovery

there is no particular site. I use Google and enter what I'm looking for, then sift through the data. I modify my search as I go along. Here's a good site on how to search. http://www.searchlores.org/

here's a good article: http://hdd.kulichki.com/page.php?id=16

at the bottom of the article is a hyperlink to a printable version of the article.

here are two good translators:

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_s ... lator.html

http://freetranslation.paralink.com/

another page from the same site with more HDD articles:

http://hdd.kulichki.com/list.php?c=articles

a glossary of HDD terms...in Russian. http://onehalf.pisem.net/glossary/index.html. Check out the links page.

you said you couldn't find anything on Google. I can assure you it's there if you keep looking. Also, search engines like Google only cover a small part of what is available on the net. Read the articles on the searchlores site above.

[tonyht]

thanks a lot for the help old tech, you are a good person who always share the knowledge... I hope I can share to you toooo, but I still newbie in hdd repair... btw, you are the hdd guru for me..
anyway, thanks again for the info.

[eyalbal]

In my experience pumping sound means misalignment and not hda or heads problem and the data can be recovered without opening the case.