Click of death is slang describing the noise made by a computer when the hard drive actuator, arm, or head are malfunctioning. When this happens, a loud clicking is heard inside the computer.

If this is happening and the computer can still boot, back up all important information on the computer before the hard drive fails. If the computer cannot boot, all information on the hard drive is considered lost, and the drive should be replaced.

Actuator, Computer slang, Hard drive, Hard drive terms

The click of death is also describes the clicking noise heard in other removable disk drives such as the Iomega Zip drive and Jaz drive.

  • What is causing noise in my computer?
  • How to recover missing, lost, or deleted files.
  • How to install computer hardware.
  • Hard drive help and support.