Sometimes when I boot my laptop the hard drive makes a clicking sound (every time 16 times), Windows does not start and I am stuck on the boot screen (note: F2, F4 or any other key do not respond).
The problem happened the first time a month ago and now it has become more frequent. I am able to boot my windows 8.1 after a few attempts. The number of attempts are also increasing now, from 2-3 earlier to 10 or more now.
I have performed disk check up from disk properties, it shows no error (maybe due to the disk working fine at that time). My hard drive is a Samsung HN-M750MBB 750.1 GB.
Can you suggest me something that I can try to stop the clicking sound and save my drive?
Additional information:
I have tested using crystaldiskinfo 6.52 and hd tune pro. Crystaldiskinfo shows 1 error that is with "current pending sector count" showing raw values as 0000002. HD tune pro shows 2 errors: the one above and second: calibration retry count. Pictures here. (Last night when I checked my disk using the above two software: there was no "current pending sector count error" in both of the software.)
Active smart found no errors.
The sound is like a clicking bomb timer. Listen to it here: http://1drv.ms/1N5JP9j
Answer
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.
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