
When a hard drive makes a beeping noise, it is typically the sound of the spindle motor attempting to spin the drive’s platters, prevented from doing so due to the read/write heads clamping down. These delicate read/write heads can occasionally get stuck, clamping down on the magnetic platters. Hovering a few nanometres above the platters are the drives read/write heads, situated on the tip of the actuator arm.

Inside a mechanical hard disk drive, a spindle motor spins the magnetic platters at speeds of around 15,000 RPM. If your computer won’t boot up and you can hear a beeping or clicking noise, this could indicate a physical fault with your machine’s hard drive.
