How to Read a Failed Hard Drive
They say your life flashes before your eyes before you (remember y'all) die. When I realized my hard drive was declining, it was a little like that. All I could think of were the hundreds of photos I didn't accept a backup of. I was determined to bring them dorsum and I succeeded; sort of.
If your hard disk drive has failed, this guide volition assist you with the repair and data recovery. (If the device is fine, these five methods will assistance you get data off the difficult bulldoze.) Are you looking for help with a failed solid state drive? It's best to turn to an good right away.
My Expressionless Difficult Drive Story
Several years ago, I experienced a hard drive failure. My laptop acted strangely. When the problems persisted after a reboot, I knew it was more than an overstretched RAM. I immediately started to dorsum upwards recent files. About half an hour later, the hard drive failed audibly and the laptop wouldn't kicking anymore.
I had backups, but not of everything. Just weeks earlier my backup drive had reached capacity. To back up important work files, I had decided to delete my personal photos. Ironically, I had already purchased a new external drive, only I had not taken the time to create a full backup. Now my photos were lost and I was devastated.
Over the next couple of weeks, I researched means to recover the data and considered doing everything under the sun---and did most of it---to revive the quondam hard bulldoze. This article is the event of that effort.
External Hard Bulldoze? Check the Enclosure and Cables
When your external hard drive fails, information technology tin practice so for all the same reasons an internal bulldoze can fail. Sometimes, all the same, it'due south not the drive that stops working, just a connection within the enclosure! And in that case, the drive is easy to revive.
Before y'all open up up whatever hardware, be sure to discharge your body's static electricity, i.e. footing yourself. Remove the hard drive from its casing and use an IDE/SATA data cable and power connector to install the drive internally on your desktop computer. Alternatively, you can get an IDE/SATA to USB adapter or a new USB enclosure, so y'all tin hook the drive up externally via USB.
The epitome above shows a SATA connector (front) and an IDE connector (dorsum).
Once you lot re-connected the external drive to your calculator, given the enclosure was the culprit, Windows should recognize information technology and assign a bulldoze alphabetic character. The drive should pop upwardly under File Explorer > This PC. You can also check nether Disk drives in the Device Managing director (press Windows + Ten to find the choice).
If the drive didn't prove up anywhere, you can attempt to manually find your drive to further narrow down the consequence; the process is described further downwardly.
Internal Hard Drive? Check All Cablevision Connections
Sometimes, information technology's non the drive that failed, only the concrete connection of cables that connect the bulldoze with the computer's motherboard. You can only wish that this is your problem! And then before yous hire someone, make sure the data and power cables are firmly connected on both ends.
To forbid hazards to your health, it's essential to plough off the computer and unplug the power cord. As mentioned above, y'all also demand to discharge your body'southward static electricity, i.e. basis yourself before yous get working on your computer's internals. So open up upwardly the example and make sure all connections are OK.
Our guide on how to physically install an internal hard bulldoze shows which connections to picket out for.
Once you lot have made certain the connections are OK, boot the calculator once more. If you lot accept a desktop computer, you can leave the case open, only stay articulate of its interior.
Does Your Hard Bulldoze Make Sounds?
As you are trying to get the hard drive to run, mind to the audio information technology is making. Is it completely dead? Or is it all the same spinning? What exactly does it sound like? Compare your sound to the list of hard drive sounds provided by Data Cent. This volition help you lot diagnose the blazon of harm.
The damage can be either internal or external. A clicking audio, for example, suggests the caput may exist malfunctioning, i.due east. internal damage. A completely dead bulldoze, on the other hand, could be due to a faulty printed circuit lath (PCB), which would be external damage.
Does Windows Recognize Your Hard Drive?
Sometimes, you tin hear your drive spinning, but it never pops upwardly. Or maybe information technology'due south completely expressionless. To pinpoint the blazon of impairment, try to manually check whether or not your computer recognizes the drive.
Y'all can do this via the BIOS in case it's the primary hard bulldoze and your computer no longer boots. Later you turn on the computer, enter the BIOS past pressing a trigger key, which could exist Del, Esc, F2, or F10, depending on the manufacturer.
Inside the BIOS, navigate through the available menus to observe where it lists which types of drives are connected to the figurer. You should find this data under the Advanced bill of fare, merely you might as well detect it indirectly nether Boot settings.
If you have hooked up the drive to another computer, you don't need to access the BIOS at all. In Windows, click the cardinal combination Windows + R, which will launch the Run input window.
Type cmd into the field and hit Enter. This will open the Command Prompt. Here type diskpart and striking Enter, to open the respective tool. In the diskpart window, type listing volume and hitting Enter to show all drives continued to your computer.
If Windows recognized your drive, meaning it appears nether diskpart, just doesn't show up as an accessible drive, chances are Windows but recognizes the PCB, but the drive itself is damaged (internal damage). In other words, if the drive is recognized in any shape or grade, the PCB is most likely working and replacing it will not fix the hard bulldoze!
Is the Printed Excursion Lath Cleaved?
Technically, the external PCB is relatively piece of cake to supersede. However, we strongly advise confronting swapping out the PCB yourself.It's non as unproblematic as finding a matching model.
Unless your hard drive is ancient, the PCB and disk will use a unique microcode to communicate. If y'all supercede a PCB of a drive that requires this microcode to boot, you could permanently damage your information.
Co-ordinate to Datarecovery.com, specialists tin "copy, rewrite, or repair the micrcode using avant-garde equipment."
Witchcraft and Wizardry
When my hard drive failed, the PCB was fine; the bulldoze was still recognized and spinning, merely information technology didn't show up in Windows, meaning I could not access it, and no software recovery tool could help me, either.
And then I put my last hope into some of those obscure tricks that you'll find floating around the net, similar shaking the drive, hit it onto a difficult surface, exposing it to dry heat in the oven, or sticking it in the freezer overnight. If yous have any idea how a hard drive works, then all of these methods should give yous the shivers!
Well, I didn't dare to cook my bulldoze, simply my suspicion was that the head was stuck. So I did shake it; to no avail. Since I could follow the reasoning, I besides wrapped my drive in an airtight Ziploc back and stuck it in the freezer overnight. The thought is that low temperatures cause metals to shrink and contract.
So if the head was stuck, the cold might get it unstuck. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. And I probably acquired condensation to settle on the hard drive platter, which could have acquired a lot more than harm. I eventually gave up and stored the bulldoze for a time to come in which I was hoping to be able to afford professional information recovery.
Fill-in Strategy Advice
Should yous succeed with ane of the questionable methods higher up, note that the fix will be temporary! So be prepared. Know exactly what you desire to back up and how. Have the correct backup software to quickly copy your data and accept enough storage space available.
If you want to copy files manually, simply copy 1 gear up of files at a time! If you make the caput jump back and along between too many files by kick off multiple copy-and-paste processes, you will irksome down the overall backup process and increase the likelihood of a fatal caput crash.
Consult a Specialist for Professional person Data Recovery
If you can afford professional help or only cannot afford to wait for a miracle, do consult a specialist. My recommendation is to go with a reputable company.
They should work with professional technicians and tools, be able to open your hard bulldoze in clean rooms or nether dust-gratuitous weather, follow industry standards, and have solid credentials, besides equally excellent recommendations. After all, you volition trust them with your individual data.
Kroll Ontrack, one of the most reputable companies in the market, offers a costless consultation and price evaluation.
Earlier you pick a company, exist sure yous understand the weather condition! Most charge just for looking at the drive and making a recommendation. They will charge actress for actually attempting to recover the data. Some will charge a total recovery fee, even if they failed to recover the data.
Revive Your Bulldoze
Diagnosing and fixing a broken hard drive is serious business. Do take it seriously, but too try to exclude some of the more simple-to-ready culprits before you fork out hundreds of dollars to a specialist. The more than you know, the better. How far you become to diagnose and fix your hard drive will depend on how important the information is for you.
You probably wonder what happened with my hard drive. Well, one fine day, when I was dissolving my apartment, I decided to give it one terminal chance and then let become of it. More than two years after I had tried everything I dared to get information technology to work, again and again for weeks, I just plugged it in and it just worked.
I recovered all my data. The drive really connected to work for many more years. Call me lucky!
Fifty-fifty if you managed to repair your drive and recovered all your data, I would not trust this hard drive again. Here's what you can do with your onetime hard drive and here's what you should know while buying a new difficult drive.
And on the bailiwick of data recovery, information technology's a good idea to learn how to rescue your data from a malware-infected system.
Image credit: Dead HDD via Flickr
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