One reason to never take your hard drive apart
Why Super User recommends it
Super User answerers point people to it when warning against opening a clicking or damaged hard drive, and to show what a failing drive sounds like.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2013 to 2017.
What it is
A short demo by Scott Holewinski of Gillware Data Recovery showing how removing the cover of a hard drive can cause a surprising failure. It also includes a clip of the clicking sound a failing drive makes. The aim is to warn owners not to open drives they care about.
What people said
Cites Jason Bristol · 2013-07 · Super User · on “Opening up and diagnosing a faulty 2.5'' hard drive”
First and foremost, I do not recommend disassembling your hard drive in any way shape or form. As you indicated you and your friend have: zero experience in HD repairing This video gives you an idea of why this should only be done by a trained professional [this video] Now that I have said that, it does sound like your HDD has been damaged. The click of death is never a good sound. Chances are the head has been damaged and possibly the platters themselves. Your in a bind as far as data recovery options are concerned. Even if you opened it up you would have to get the data off the platters manually since the HDD is physically damaged.
Cites Hannu · 2014-08 · Super User · on “Why does my Acer aspire make a clicking sound when switched on?”
continuous clicking sound Compare to the sound you get to hear at 2:24 in this video: [this video] If that is what you hear, then you have a broken hard drive. The guy in the video opens the drive and shows that he can get it running again. But knowing all the facts there is NO WAY to do that in a normal home or office AND HAVE IT OPERATE RELIABLY for elongated time from that point. A load of comments on the video indicates otherwise, and may be that they were lucky: The health status of devices like this IS very dependent on how you treat them. I'd say the speaker is sitting in a controlled environment e.g. a lower class of "clean room" [LINK] .
Cites davidgo · 2017-09 · Super User · on “Barracuda 7200.12 making a very loud sound (squeak). Drive is not showing”
On your video I see the top of the drive is off. Ignoring my earlier comments about dust (which I still stand by - and indeed running the disk with the platters exposed will be even worse), the drive lid is a structural element of the drive and needs to be on with the correct torque on the screws - this [this video] YouTube video demonstrates the importance of correct torque.