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Q&A

Welcome to the Power Users community on Codidact!

Power Users is a Q&A site for questions about the usage of computer software and hardware. We are still a small site and would like to grow, so please consider joining our community. We are looking forward to your questions and answers; they are the building blocks of a repository of knowledge we are building together.

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Q&A My hard drive is screeching, now what?

Hard drives make sounds, just as anything spun around at 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM (typical) would do. If the sound changes than that is often a sign of a problem. There are some exceptions (especially...

posted 8mo ago by manassehkatz‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar manassehkatz‭ · 2024-03-24T04:05:45Z (8 months ago)
Hard drives make sounds, just as anything spun around at 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM (typical) would do. If the sound *changes* than that is often a sign of a problem.

There are some exceptions (especially Apple computers where things get rather proprietary), but generally speaking *any* hard drive problem these days is solved by replacing with an SSD - Solid State Drive. Prices have come down tremendously in the past few years, so replacement of all but the largest drives is generally relatively affordable. Many new computers use NVMe or similar SSDs - basically a tiny circuit board instead of the traditional 2.5" or 3.5" or 5.25" (e.g., PC/XT, AT, etc.) or (even older) 8" drives. Most computers built for many years use a SATA interface, and generally a 2.5" SATA SSD is a drop-in replacement, just requiring a mounting kit if replacing a 3.5" drive (desktop) and nothing special if replacing a 2.5" drive (laptop). If your computer is so old that it doesn't have a SATA interface then you are living on borrowed time for the entire computer, not just the hard drive.

Most manufacturers have free software for transferring from an HD to an SSD (provided you are using their brand of SSD), plus there are alternatives such as [CloneZilla](https://clonezilla.org/) which are useful in certain situations.