Question from Michael: I have an HP Pavilion dv5t laptop with a 500GB hard drive which recently began making clicking and clunking sounds. After reading your article about hard drives making unusual sounds I realize that the drive is probably in the process of failing.
My question is can hard drives be repaired? This is a 7200RPM model which I understand to be one of the best. (By the way, I have backed everything up so I’m not worried about losing any programs or data.)
Rick‘s answer: Michael, hard drives can indeed be repaired, but in my opinion it isn’t worth the cost of having it done. Repairing a hard drive typically involves the use of a “clean room” which greatly increases the cost of the repair. With the prices of hard drives and solid state drives falling all the time, I would never recommend having a consumer grade hard drive repaired.
You can replace that failing 500GB drive with a brand new equivalent model for far less than it would cost to repair the one you have. Even better, you can replace it with an SSD and put your laptop into overdrive!
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