Turning my computer off by the power button cause damage?

Hi, so basically my computer will freeze quite often and i need to hold down the power button to turn it off then start again when it does this.

I have been doing this pretty much everyday for the last 2 years lol, often more than once during start up and now my hard drive is making clicking sounds.

What damage have i caused by doing this, will it only damage the hard drive, or should i worry about the more expensive parts too?

 

Which OS are you running? What are the BSOD messages that you are getting? There's one on the top left written in this format, xxxx_xxx_xxxx_xxx and one at the bottom written as 0Xxxxxx(etc.), all we need is the first part to the left of the parentheses. Your clicking hard drive is worrisome as it may be on its last legs. Who's the maker, go to their site and test with their free tools.

Normally, rebooting with the power button 'shouldn't' harm your hardware, same as if you'd lose power but not recommended to solve an issue. We need to find out why your machine behaves like this in the first place, and your hard drive may be a casualty of two years of doing this, it could be now somewhat corrupted.

 

As augiedoggie has rightly said, turning off your computer using the power button should cause no damage at all.

As for the hard drive, please bear in mind the average life span for a hard drive is three years. Yours may be approaching this time so this may be the 'natural' end of it's life. However, hard drives are easy and inexpensive to replace so the computer can keep running with a new drive if you want it to.