The Truth About Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

The hard drive is the heart of your computer. As technology advances, these get smaller and smaller while becoming more powerful and able to store increasing amounts of data. Drives come with considerable storage capacity and are relatively cheap compared to other storage mediums, and their overall reliability has improved significantly as well, but they are still prone to occasional failure.

When they do fail, the results are often catastrophic. If you use your computer for business purposes, your entire company could be jeopardized by a hard disk failure that leads to the loss of your valuable data. Fortunately, in many cases it is possible to retrieve the lost data - provided you take the necessary steps to recover your files. In fact, data recovery professionals typically have a success rate of approximately 75-85% in retrieving data that has been lost due to hard drive failure.

Hard drives can fail for one of two reasons, either due to physical damage or logical damage. Let's have a look at each these situations and discuss what you can do about it.

Physical failure

Physical failure is pretty straightforward. The disk fails because one or more of the internal components of the hard drive stop working properly. This could be due to temperature extremes, moisture damage, impact or physical degradation over time. Some possible types of physical damage include:

• Spindle motor failure
• Read/write head failure
• Disk controller failure
• Damage to the logic board
• Damage to the actuator arm

A hard drive is a delicate piece of equipment and you must protect it from physical damage as much as possible. To repair physical damage to the drive, you need to consult a professional computer technician. Trying to repair it yourself is most likely just going to cause additional, more serious problems.

A repair technician will dismantle your hard drive in a sterilized laboratory environment with controlled temperature, pressure and humidity to prevent dust particles from corrupting your drive. The technician will then repair or replace the damaged components.

Logical damage

About 60% of the time, hard drive failure is due to a logical failure. Logical failure is caused by damage to the software component of your drive and can occur due to any of the following reasons:

• Virus infection
• Corruption of the file system
• Accidental deletion of important files
• Operating system malfunction
• Formatting problems

In these cases, you can often recover your information with data recovery software. Data recovery software is made up of a group of utilities that are able to scan your hard drive and search for your lost data. Some data recovery programs offer bootable media in case your computer is not able boot on its own. This can allow the drive to be restored to its previous condition. The recovery software is then able to scan your data and save it to a secure hard drive or flash drive.

This process can take quite a bit of time, perhaps a full day to scan the drive and an additional day to recover the files.

What can I do to improve my chances of getting my data back?

The best thing you can do if you suspect a physical malfunction of your hard drive is to back up your data right away if possible, shut down your system, and get your whole drive to a professional. Signs of an impending physical failure include a new, unusual sound coming from your hardware, such as a buzzing, or clunking sound.

You can prolong the life of your hard drive by making sure you keep it in a cool, dry environment. Excessive heat can damage the components of the drive and lead to failure. Keep any potential sources of moisture away from your computer and perhaps consider adding a dehumidifier to your room to keep the temperature cool and dry.

If you have lost files due to a formatting issue, stop using the drive immediately to limit the chances of your files being overwritten. Data recovery utilities may be able to help with this problem, but they are not always successful.

Finally, the best protection against hard drive failure is not prevention, but preparation. Back up your important information on a daily basis to make sure that you protect yourself from data loss you could suffer if your drive was to ever fail. This seems obvious, but it's a simple process that many people overlook.

Taking steps to increase the life of your hard drive and backing up your data regularly are your best defence against hard disk failure. In the event that your drive does fail, the best option is to consult a professional data recovery company.