Some old disk drives had a tendency to have the heads stick to the disks parking area at the periphery when they got old.
There was a substance on the disk platters that slowly migrated outwards when the disks were running, and eventually it could build up thick enough for the heads to get stuck in it. I ususlly used a manual twisting motion of the disk to try and release it, if it worked the data could then usually be transferred to another drive.
The original often just got stuck again next time it was parked/turned off.

I hope it's something less lethal like that, and that it's repairable. Took it to a recovery service, just to be safe.

If it's clicking, chances are the drive is spinning up, but the heads are bad (or zone calibration sectors have gone bad/weak.) Probably not much you can do about it, other than a professional HDD repair service... and hope they can find another same exact HDD to do a head swap.

Now if the heads were sticking to the platters, that would make a different noise. As soon as the system is powered up, you may hear a faint alarm-like noise originating from the HDD (provided this noise is not drowned by loud fans from the rest of the system.) I have an old Maxtor that does this from time to time. Giving it a sideways knock or too usually frees things up. Have had that problem with it for years while I was still using it. Never managed to loose data off of it and it kept working... and still does to this day.

Yeah, it's not exactly clicking like a failed drive, more like it's repeatedly starting to spin, unsuccessfully ... It's the "standard" hard drive sound you hear with good drives too, but it never goes on to the next stage of HDD noises. The "clicking" I heard actually comes from the PSU fan which is also failing apparently, as that sound remains even after HDD has been removed. It's been a while since I last did HDD diagnostics based on sound, so I've gotten a bit rusty, 🤣.

Regarding the PSU, what options are there to use more modern ATX PSUs on old AT boards? I've did some research and there are those ATX to AT adapters, and there are "Voltage blaster" ISA cards that provide -5V that modern PSUs do not... I have a SoundBlaster in there so I guess I'll need those -5V. Can I then use any ATX supply?

doimus wrote on 2026-04-01, 19:17:

I hope it's something less lethal like that, and that it's repairable. Took it to a recovery service, just to be safe.

Err, what is the data worth, recovery service is very expensive, kind of depends on the depth they have to go to, cost you an arm if they can coax the drive in software, an arm and a leg if it needs cleanroom fixing with a donor drive for parts

Matth79 wrote on 2026-04-02, 14:00:

Err, what is the data worth, recovery service is very expensive, kind of depends on the depth they have to go to, cost you an arm if they can coax the drive in software, an arm and a leg if it needs cleanroom fixing with a donor drive for parts

It's free diagnostics, thankfully. I only have to wait three weeks to get in line, oh well. I'll see from there.

The data is just sentimental value. It's my first PC.
Most of it I already have backed up for decades, anyway. I'm just a little bitter at myself, as that drive worked a year ago, and I let it sit until I get all the modern parts to refresh the PC and was intending to image the whole drive and continue running it off a SD card. Sigh.