Hard Drive Failure, Recovery, Repair, Causes, Prevention, Maintenance

The most basic and fastest storage system in any computer – mobile or desktop – is its internal storage. In computer language, it is termed a Hard Disk and comprises several disks – each with its own memory reader/writer head. As with electronics, even hard drives have a limited life, but they sometimes crash. That is what we will talk about in this article. After discussing why a hard disk fails much earlier than its estimated life span, we will cover how to recover data from a failed hard drive. We also discuss how to know if a hard drive is failing.

What is Hard Drive Failure

Working Of Hard Drives & Design

There can be ‘n’ a number of reasons why hard drives fail much before their estimated life span. The structure of the hard disk is delicate – even though it looks tough from outside. Inside, it is a number of thin magnetic plates aligned in parallel to each other. Each plate has a minimum of one head for reading from and writing to that plate. If the hard disk drive (HDD) supports both sides, write two heads for each plate. Again, these heads are positioned in a way that they do not disturb the alignment of plates plus heads. The following figure of Hard Disk Drive shows how the plates and heads are aligned inside the tough jacket it wears for better protection.

If the alignment is spoiled for any reason, one or more plates will become unreadable. In some cases, if the File Allocation Table is destroyed, the entire HDD will become unreadable without the use of Hard disk recovery tools. The following figure shows how an improper alignment can create friction among two or more plates.

The most common reason for hard disk failure is improper alignment, which causes one plate to touch the other, thereby destroying data on the other or both plates. The most common reason for improper alignment is the mishandling of the Hard Drive Disk. Do not go by the tough jacket of the HDD. It does protect from small shocks, but the disks are still vulnerable, and a little disturbance can destroy the entire hard disk.

Among other reasons why hard disk drives fail is improper venting. The disks inside the HDD keep on spinning, and the heads are constantly reading them. This creates a certain amount of heat due to friction. If the vents of the HDD are clogged or if the HDD is used roughly without breaks, over time, they may spoil the plates and/or the heads, leading to an HDD crash!

Read: How to create Mirrored Volume for Instant Hard Drive Backup in Windows

How To Know If Hard Drive Is Failing?

In most cases, you can sense it. For example, when driving a car, if you have to exert a little extra power for gas, you know one of your tires needs air. Similarly, a failing hard disk can give away warnings. Look for the following:

1. Sounds from the machine – or the click of death anthem.
2. Heat just above and around the place where your HDD is seated

The above are just hints that need to be verified that your hard disk drive is failing. Some free tools help you check the hard disk for possible problems. Some even offer solutions if they think you can solve the issue of the hard disk failing. Read our article on freeware to monitor hard disk drive for details on the topic.

Read: What are the signs of RAM failure?

Hard Drive Recovery

If you can access parts of your hard disk, you can probably run CHKDSK to scan and recover corrupt partitions. Read about using CHKDSK in the Windows operating system.

There are some free and paid tools too. The free ones are good if your hard disk drive is not damaged much. If it is heavily crushed, you might have to call a professional to analyze each plate of your hard disk using their own methods. But that is recommended only after you tried on your own – using software and not manually – to recover data from the damaged disk. For more details, read our article on freeware to recover data from damaged hard disks.

Related: Hard drive wiped itself! What do I do?

Hard Drive Maintenance Tips

Hard disks will eventually fail—someday or the other. Every electronic device fails at some point. The best method is to keep making backup copies. There are plenty of free services such as Mozy, OneDrive, and Google Drive that allow you to back up to the cloud. You may also back up to an external hard disk, depending upon your budget and other preferences.

Anyway, hard disk maintenance is not a tough task. A few simple tasks will make sure your hard disk lives longer and works smoothly.

1. The first thing is – HANDLE WITH CARE. This applies to all types of electronics. Your hard disk drive may be rugged thereby reducing chances of damage upon falling. But why take the risk? Make sure you are carrying your laptops and tablets in cases that are easy to hold on. Keep them out of reach of children and away from heat and humidity.

2. Save on the number of rotations required to locate and retrieve data and write data. This can be achieved by regular defragmentation. As with most of us, we often forget important computer maintenance tasks. I would suggest either an auto-defrag program such as SmartDefrag or better still if you are using Windows Vista and later – add ‘defrag c: /x /h‘ to Task Scheduler without the quotes. I recommend defragmentation at least once a month.

3. Using Power Options in the Windows Operating System, shut down the hard disk drives if you leave the computer for a while. In my case, it is for 20 minutes. If I am not using the computer for 20 minutes, the hard disks are turned off automatically.

4. Monitor HDD temperature using freeware such as Acronis. If you get an alert saying the HDD is hotter than it should be, check to see if the vents are open properly and the fans, etc., are working.

5. Check up Hard Disk Health natively in Windows 11/10 using WMIC or Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line.

This concludes why hard disks fail and how to recover data from damaged hard disk drives. If you have any hard disk maintenance tips I did not cover here, please share it with us.