That usually indicates some kind of mechanical failure with either the disk or the arm, and it could mean that your hard drive is in trouble. What you don’t want to hear is a loud “snap” or “click” noise.
A fully-functioning hard drive that’s powered on will make a soft “hum” or “whir” noise from the spinning disk, and more audible “tap” noises as the actuator arm moves rapidly back and forth. That’s because it has some of the same design elements-a spinning “platter” disk where the information is stored, and a moving actuator arm that can read and write the data just like the needle plays music from an old record. Inside the metal case, a hard drive looks a lot like a high-tech record player. A little low-volume clicking is actually expected from most hard drives.
