Last weekend i dug up my old computer to transfer files to my new external HDD but I have been getting a clicking noise and then the computer freezes.

noise at 19 seconds
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Rf1ZFyg9Wp

I don't think it is the HDD because there are three HDD in the computer and all three do it. Does anyone have an idea what it could be? the computer was from 2006ish

Edit:cimputer lol

That's the POST beep (99% sure) and it should mean that it's all (hardware) OK.
http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

The sound right afterwards could be a drive (HDD, DVD, disk). Have you checked that there is no medium in any of them. Maybe the systems tries to boot from a non-bootable disk ... if you're lucky.

You can also try accessing the PC's BIOS. Search the Internet for your PC model and BIOS and you'll find the key to press at start to get into the BIOS. If that works, you know at least the machine is working up to handing over to your operating system stored on a harddisk. It'll help with further bug tracking.

Just to make sure, you may want to disconnect the other two HDDs, leaving only the main drive, and then see if it boots up. The beep itself sounds like a normal POST beep that occurs when everything is fine.

To me that sounds like a hard-disk head flicking back. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one drive is dead.

Common BIOS keys are F2 ,F8 or Del... try tapping those as the system starts to check the BIoS can see all disks.


I am assuming you are getting nothing on your monitor.

It isn't the monitor. the hard drives still work and i have tried them singularly, so unless all three have the same fault. yeah i am getting xp on the screen, that noise happens at random during normal use then it stops (after a few seconds). also there is no floppy drive (took that out years ago). The only things in the coputer is three drives (two of them can be booted fro), a graphics card, a sound card, dvd and CD drive (not connected to the PSU) and monitor mouse keyboard

i may get a IDE to usb adapter. I just want to get the data off the drives and then I am binning the machine. It got two different boot drives since I had an issue with deleting xp on one of them, so one of the is a back up boot drive (both of them make that noise)

I will get a clearer noise later today

You haven't mentioned if your system boots at all, or if the problem happens during normal operation, but I'm assuming it doesn't boot up at all.

I believe it's the sound made by of one/multiple hard-disk heads being parked. I've seen this happen in a number of cases when the BIOS would put the system in a general low-power state, parking the hard-disk heads and even stopping some of the system fans after it failed to pass the required power-on checks. Something similar could happen in your case I assume.

From past experience I can say that it can be caused by something as stupid as having a key or several keys stuck on your keyboard (pressed down), or by a fused/melted micro-controller, burned capacitor etc on the motherboard or graphics card (in which case it's almost impossible to narrow down, as there are cases when everything looks well on the outside even if it's fried on the inside).

The usual way to approach this is to gradually remove non-essential components and see if it makes any difference (leave only one hdd plugged, a single RAM chip, remove the dedicated graphics card as well if you have the option of using the on-board one and so on). Hope it helps!