Hearing a ‘clicking noise’ coming from your computer is a bad sign.

“Anytime it starts going bad you’ll hear clicking, grinding, any noise, but the normal soft, whirring of a fan,” Computer Doctors owner Jacob Lott said.

So what does your computer hard drive look like?  A standard hard drive is a spinning disc with moving parts that can be thrown out of whack especially if you’re rough with your laptop.

“Anytime it’s dropped or jostled in a certain way could potentially damage the drive. Definitely, it’s better to always handle with care,” Lott said.

When the hard drive does fail, the first question most of us have is, “Can you recover my data?”

“On a traditional drive, it’s almost always recoverable,” Lott said.  ”It’s just a matter of cost and time.”

If it’s recoverable in-store, it generally costs a couple of hundred bucks, but if you need a high-end clean room, it could cost more than a $1,000.

“The higher end clean rooms have HEPA filters and the technician will wear a whole (anti-contamination) suit,” Lott explained.  “If they take it apart and even a piece of dust gets in there between the little arm and the disc itself, it could potentially scratch the disc and destroy your data.”

Solid State Drive

One option to protect yourself:  buy a solid-state hard drive.  It costs more, but it’s faster and much harder to damage.

“They don’t have any moving parts, because what they use are little memory chips, similar to the ones you use in your camera or your (smart) phone,” Lott said.

The only problem:  if it does fail, recovering data can be much more difficult. 

Back Up Your Data

Keep in mind; all hard drives eventually fail, so it’s really important to have a good backup.

There are strengths and weaknesses when you consider local back-ups versus online services like DropBox, Carbonite, and Google Drive, for example.

Local back-ups are free, come with your computer and include most basic features, but many don’t have auto deletes of old backups, so they can take up a lot of drive space.

If you purchase a high-end program, most are very reliable, automatic and will email you if your backup fails, which is a nice feature.  One thing to remember though is they can wear out your hard drive faster, especially if you have more than one backup program running.

“They do tend to wear out your drive faster, because they keep your drive constantly spinning or constantly writing,” Lott said. “It’s a good idea to always have a good backup, regardless if it’s a new or used computer.”

Click here to learn more about different options available to backup your data.

Repair or Replace?

When it comes to whether to repair your hard drive or replace it, generally, a good guideline is to buy new, if the repair is more than half the cost of a replacement. If you can afford it, it can make sense to get a new computer with all the upgrades and updates, if it’s more than a few years old.

Keep in mind there are a few hidden expenses when you buy a new computer, especially if you’re transferring over your old data. If you’ll want professional assistance to get your new computer set up, factor in that cost before buying a new laptop.

If you go the repair route, make sure to find out what the warranty is on repairs. Most shops will give you at least 90 days. It’s also a good idea to find out how long the repairs will take. Sometimes it can be a week or longer. Ask yourself: Can you live without your computer for that long?