Hard drive is an important storage device since many decades that kept your data always stored even in the absence of power source. Hard drive is improved much more in terms of size and performance as compare to past when merely 5 or 10 MB of storage capacity is available to save user data and takes very large space. Lets try to understand various hard drive failure prevention and how data recovery can be leverage in case of deleted/lost files.
Continuous evolvement by hard drive manufacturers makes it of very large capacity yet highly complex in nature which greatly increases the barrier of data recovery firms to hdd recovery when accidentally lost, deleted, or formatted. Moreover, large capacities hard drives are more prominent to failure due to of using large sector sizes (4 K) as well as data recovery possibilities are also very slim as compare to low capacity hard drives.
Exploring mechanism of hard drive can make any problems clearer and easy to understand about when and why your hard drive might suppose to die or reasons behind any particular error while accessing or saving data. This article covers all the hard drive failure reasons from basic to advance to make your data recovery operation more easy and comfortable.
Hard Drive Architecture and Equipments Details:
Hard drive consists of some basic components responsible for its proper functioning. Most hard drive fails or become dead due to failed equipments and saved data would become deleted or damaged. Though, you might be able to recover it back by using proficient hard drive recovery utility, if corruptions are slim and the hard drive can still be readable by the OS. Otherwise, professional data recovery services are the only available option to adopt to bring back the lost.
Every hard drive ranging from traditional to modern one consists almost the same equipments regardless its quantity and complexities. Before getting to the hard drive working, let’s have a closer look on every part of hard drive and its role playing:
Platters: Platters are created with aluminum with magnetic material coated on it. Platters are the main source of saving your digital media files and successfully running OS/Computer. Platters can spin at rate of 5900 RPM or 7200 RPM (Rotation per minute); these rates can be even higher on high capacity hard drives.
Every platter can further have tracks, sectors, and cylinders which define the structure in which, the data is stored. Due to magnetically coated, platter may wear out over time and gives freezes when the reading sector becomes too bad or damaged.
Read/Write Head
Data inside the platter is read by the head assembly located at the up and down, both side of the platter. Every single platter will have minimum of two heads, so modern hard drives can have 6 or more heads as it contains minimum of 3 platters. These heads will ‘fly’ over the platter and read the data at very higher speed by moving around the data area of the platter.
All the heads were attached to a common actuator arm which is responsible for moving heads to all around the platter and ensures that, heads are not making the contact with the platter; otherwise data of that particular area may become damaged or destroyed. Copper wire is a part of the heads and placed above or below every platter. It can be magnetize or demagnetize to save or delete data. It moves around the platter at 50 or more cycle per nano second on supercomputers or high spec home computer machines.
Failing heads can stop reading data from the platter or may eventually make hard drive invisible from the computer BIOS. Reasons behind this could be power outage, dropping from some height, overage etc. As result, operating system would become fail to start the system or completely freezes while accessing/saving data.
PCB (Printed Circuit Board): It is the main source to provide electricity to all the internally sealed equipments and convert data from the binary form into readable data that you can understand. As it’s directly connected to the power source, there are high vulnerabilities that it may become failed or burnt and stop functioning immediately.
However, if you are a professional user and understand the risks of opening the hard drive in unsafe environment, can swap it out safely and see if drive starts working again.
Firmware: Every hard drive manufacturer inbuilt certain kind of codes on PCB or starting area of every platter, called firmware. Firmware is responsible for initiating the hard drive as soon as the power source is applied tells other parts of the hard drive to perform intended operation. Some part of the Firmware is also stored on the PCB which directs it on how and when to perform operations and data addressing inside the sealed hard drive case.
Firmware can go bad over time and prevents PCB to control the read/write heads or platter. It’s very difficult to replace firmware after corruption or damages as every manufacturer put their own small sets of unique code and parameter which is hard to find even in the hard drives of exact make and model.
Above listed hard drive equipments are most sensitive and any minor or major misdeeds could result in severe data loss. Though, many of these equipments can be repaired or replaced if you’re a professional and have past experience on working with hard drive troubleshooting, otherwise taking help of any data recovery firms are recommended.
Working Mechanism: Whenever you save any files, write head of the head assembly locate the empty area around the platter (sectors or blocks) and writes data on it. In the mean time, a unique directory location of that particular file is stored on the MFT (Master File Table) and kept there even after shutting down the PC. That is to make your computer capable of accessing that particular data and make sure that heads not overwriting data with already filled space.
If you want to access any particular file, CPU will send information to hard drive and tells about the requested information (can be either read or delete). Hard drive will then find the file within nano seconds on a very large area of platter and revert back to CPU with files. Finally, you could able to see the requested file as well as perform any desired operation on it and hard drive will overwrite previous file with the modified version.
How data recovery software works after deleting any file(s)?
After deleting any files from the system, a directory record is still maintained by the MFT and a cache of the actual data, though space is marked as free and can be overwritten when you save another file.
Almost all recovery software follows the same phenomenon of recovering deleted files from the list of standard storage devices. As soon as your start the hard drive recovery program and initiates drive scanning step, it will gain information from MFT about any deleted files and shows the result in preview pane.
Note: overwritten files can also be recovered depends on the quantity of data you’ve saved after deleting that file.
Symptoms of failing Hard Drive
Hard drive may eventually fail or become inaccessible, due to variety of factors like virus/malware corruption, file system damages, logical/mechanical corruption etc. So, it’s advisable to understand the symptoms of failing hard drive and immediately backup/move your data to an external storage device before disaster strikes.
1. System fails to start or making strange noises: All of a sudden, you start the system and hears strange noises coming from the hard drive with some error message or black screen and stays there till you reboot the PC. You’re getting the same result regardless whatever steps you choose. This clearly indicates that the hard drive have some internally damaged equipments or software corruption. Data lost due to software corruption or logical hard drive corruption can still be recovered using data recovery software as it can still read the hard drive(though connecting it externally to different computer is recommended) and perform recovery operation which lets you save the problem data to any other location i.e., external hard drive, USB or flash drive.
Strange noises coming from the hard drive is a strong symbol of failed heads assembly (head crash) which can further damages data area inside the platter and corrupts the boot record(system booting Information). This is definitely a pros task to have your data recovered. For best data recovery results, stop using the drive and deliver it to pros hands.
Data recovery pros will then open the drive in clean room environment (also known as Class 100 clean room) and test for failing equipments as well as salvage every byte of deleted data, from wherever possible inside the platter.
2. Platter is not spinning up, 90 % PCB Failure Problem:
Sometime, you couldn’t hear any noise or the system absolutely does nothing even after applying the power source. That indicates a PCB problem which is less tragic and you could make your hard drive start working again by replacing the failed PCB with the exact board. You can find the same board in the hard drive of same make and models.
If you did this in the right way and still the result is same, avoid performing further operation and immediately seek for professional help.
3. Freeze or stop while accessing/saving data
This could happen when the hard drive have over aging equipments like degraded platter that gets formatted over 100 times or very slim life remain in the PCB. Moreover, if you’ve accidentally dropped the hard drive and now wants to use it again, your system become freezes or hang while using certain programs or accessing data. You need to look carefully for failing equipments (test first and second step) and replace it with exact make and models.
It could also be possible that large amount of bad sectors and blocks has been developed inside the platter which heads trying to read and ultimately, heads assembly failed to read any information and gives freezes or complete system inaccessibility.
- In many cases, you could hear beeping sounds coming from the hard drive just after applying the power source and will also results the same, freezing or system inaccessibility. This indicates a serious mechanical failure and definitely not a DIY job. Possible reasons could be either heads is not park properly or somehow making contacts with the data area of the platter. Remember heads shouldn’t make contact with the platter as it can easily damage the very smooth area of the platter and makes that area permanently non readable.
So you may be in trouble if the hard drive suffers serious damages and gives data inaccessibility. Data recovery services needs a high amount of money to be paid to get your data recovered, which is off course, needs data to be more precious. While in majority of cases, hard drive data recovery software can do the needful and cheaper than the services.
FAQ
- What happens when your hard drive fails?
When your hard drive fails, you might encounter boot errors in your BIOS when starting your computer, or “USB Device malfunctioned” error messages when plugging in a failed external drive. You also may notice some physical signs of hard disk failure, such as clicking, beeping, or other strange noises.
- How can I check the health of my SSD drive?
You can use Stellar Drive Monitor, an advanced drive health monitoring software that allows you to track the hard disk’s temperature, performance, and health. It offers the SMART status feature to scan, monitor and display bad sectors on the disk. Additionally, it lets you know if your hard drive can survive the data recovery process.
- How do you repair a corrupted hard drive?
If your hard drive is logically corrupted, you can opt for the following solutions to repair the corrupted hard drive and recover data from it:
- Run Antivirus Scan on your Hard Disk
- Run Command Prompt to Check for File System Errors and Bad Sectors
- Run SFC Scan
- Check Hard Disk in Disk Management
- How do I recover data from my laptop hard drive that won’t boot?
To recover data from a Laptop Hard Drive that Won’t Boot, you need to check if the hard drive boots after connecting to another system. If it’s possible, copy-paste data to the desired location. If not, perform bootable media recovery to retrieve data.
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