How To Know Your Hard Drive Is About To Crash

Hard drives crash. It’s a fact of life for anyone who uses a computer. If you store irreplaceable information on your hard drive, then a failure can be a catastrophe. But can you recover the family photos, work documents or financial data that you kept meaning to back up, but never did? There might be hope, so don’t give up on that broken hard drive yet.

Signs of Hard Drive Failure

• Hearing the hard drive making any unusual noises such as grinding or screeching noises might mean the bearings or spindle motor are failing. A clicking, clunking or clanging sound could be the read/write arm slamming back and forth.
• Performance problems include a sudden increase in the frequency of freeze-ups and crashes.

Should you notice any of these signs, backing up your files on cloud storage or another hard drive will be a good idea.

Ways to troubleshoot your hard drive

Before you take steps to retrieve data from a crashed hard drive, you have to first determine where the problem lies. If your computer is running Windows, the first thing you should do is reboot the computer and go into the basic input/output system (BIOS).

Go into BIOS

Here are the steps to go into BIOS

• This can be done by pressing the Delete key during the boot-up sequence
• Watch for on-screen prompts. BIOS has a utility that autodetects drives.
• Run this and see if the drive shows up. If it doesn’t, there may be a problem with the connections between the drive and the motherboard. Check all those connections.

Create a Bootable Virus Scan Disk

You can also create a bootable virus scan disk and scan the dead drive for any viruses that might be causing the problem. If your computer is infected, you may be able to use the virus scan disk to repair the problem as well.

Can I recover lost files From Crashed Hard Drive?

Yes, it is possible to recover your files. However, that may be subject to the extent of damage to the hard drive. If your drive has a mechanical problem, you should be ready to spend some cash. The drive might be fixable and your data recoverable, but it might require a professional repair, which can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. 

How do I save my Data?

While the files can’t always be recovered, there’s a chance you might be able to retrieve them. Just remember one thing — even if your files can be restored, it will take hours of frustrating effort and might cost you quite a bit of money, too. In this age of cloud computing, I suggest you try backing up on various cloud storage platforms to avoid the hustle of retrieving data from your crashed hard drive.