It's called "stiction" [1] and it used to be a very common way for HDs to fail. I haven't seen it so much any more. You could also hold the drive in your hand

It's called "stiction" [1] and it used to be a very common way for HDs to fail. I haven't seen it so much any more. You could also hold the drive in your hand and rotate it in a jerking fashion to try to unstick it. I remember doing that successfully a few times. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives