Hard Drive Failure? Fix it!
A hard drive is one of the most important stuff in your computer. But failures happen.
What to do, if your HDD needs in fixing?
In this article, you will find out all about hard drive failure recovery (and why you need it) and how to fix hard drive failures.
Are you ready? Let's read!
Signs of disk failure
You can determine whether your hard disk is damaged by the following signs:
- The computer works, but some data is missing.
- A hard disk is not detected by a PC or a laptop.
- A hard disk is not detected in the BIOS process.
- There is malware damage to the program files, due to which the files are not detected on the PC.
- You cannot read, copy, delete or do any other actions with files that are on the hard disk.
- An unknown hard drive failure has occurred.
What leads to hard drive failure
There are two types of hard drives: SSD (solid-state drive) or HDD (hard drive). Each of them has its own advantages, but both of them become damaged sooner or later.
Here are the main reasons for this misfortune:
- Each hard disk has its own expiration date, so with long and excessive use, a disk failure is inevitable.
- The use of a hard disk in extreme temperatures, as well as the loss (or lack) of cooling in a computer system, is disastrous for a hard drive.
- Sudden power surges due to power outages will cause hard drive failure. By the way, if you suddenly, in an unsafe way, to turn off the computer, the risk of hard disk drive failure will be very high.
- Careless and rude use of a hard disk; for example, when you in anger throw a laptop on a bed or on the floor, since the internal components of a hard disk are very fragile, especially in classic HDDs.
- Production firmware errors, like a bad sector, happen very rarely, but still it is possible.
- Water damage is still one of the most common causes of hard drive failure. And not only flooding: if your PC or laptop is used in a room with too much moisture, that may damage not the only hard drive, but the whole computer’s electronics.
- A less common reason is a high magnetic field. Any magnetic field is not good for a computer, but the stronger the field gets, the risk of disk failure increases in a direct ratio.
These are the most common user troubles and errors, as a result of which you may get a faulty hard disk. But here you will find out how to fix hard disk failure and get some excellent solutions to this problem. Keep reading :)
About load/unload technologies and landing zones
Information is recorded and read using universal write/read heads.
All sides of the disk provide their own track for writing and reading, and it should be understood that the heads are located on a common drive for all disks. Therefore, the synchronous movement of the head is obvious here. Normal disk operation does not allow contact between the heads and the magnetic surface of the disk. But with sudden voltage drops, strong shocks to the disk, etc., the heads still sink to the magnetic surface and the disk is likely to be damaged.
Therefore, nowadays modern disks use a loading/unloading mechanism, which prevents the heads from touching the magnetic surface even in the event of a power outage and mechanical damage. This mechanism has a so-called inclined panel (located above the outer surface of the disk). When the drive is idle, the heads move to this panel. As soon as electricity is sent through, the heads are unlocked and continue to work (this happens only when the rotation speed of the hard drives is sufficient).
The flow of air that is formed during the rotation of the disks prevents the head from being damaged on the hard disk plate, so the hard disk does not fail.
Restore data from a failed hard drive
You may say: why does restoring data the first priority when fixing a hard drive?
Because ALL methods that exist to deal with hard disk failure are harmful to your data. The best decision is to recover files first and only then work on the drive’s problems.
How it can be done? It can be done by using recovery software.
However, it is necessary to choose a specific program in a deliberate manner, because the result depends on it. DiskInternals Partition Recovery is designed specifically to recover files from a failed hard drive or a hard drive with a failed file system.
The software works with many file systems: HFS, NTFS, FAT, ReFS, UFS, EXT 2/3/4, ReiserFS, etc. It works on each of the hard disk partitions and thoroughly searches for lost files.
Partition Recovery will easily handle the recovery of any type of data lost to formatting, accidental or deliberate deletion, virus attack, hard disk damage, operating system errors, and in other situations.
In order to use this software, you only need to download it, and the rest will be done for you by the built-in, simple and convenient recovery wizard.
In addition, for convenience and clarity, Partition Recovery has a free trial version with a preview feature, which you can use right now.
Guide: how to recover files from a hard disk
See how easy it is to use DiskInternals Partition Recovery:
- 1. Download and install DiskInternals Partition Recovery.
- 2. The recovery wizard will start automatically and ask you to select the partition on the hard disk that you want to recover, as well as the main parameters for data search (a type of file system will be detected automatically). The best option to select full scanning mode.
- 3. The scanning process will begin. Wait for the process to complete.
- 4. Preview and restore. You can view all the files found for free by right-clicking on the file and selecting “Preview in a new window”.
- 5. To save the recovered files, you just need to buy a license and enter the license key. After you select the place where you want to save found files (don’t save them in the old place!), all found data will be restored automatically.
Fix a hard drive with Windows
Windows systems offer a built-in tool for fixing hard drive failure.
To do this, follow these steps:
Select My Computer. Then select and right-click on your failed hard drive. From the list, select Properties.
Then click Tools -> Check. Now start scanning the selected hard disk.
After a while, your hard disk should work properly. But do not forget to restart the computer.
As you can see, fixing a hard drive is simple. But if that doesn’t help, there are some other hard drive failure recovery methods and you can read it here.
But remember! Any hard drive fix may lead to full loss of your files, so use DiskInternals Partition Recovery first and as long your files are safe and sound, any hard drive failure can be fixed quickly and with no fear.
Good luck!