Hard Drive Failures: What to Look for and How to Fix It

Your hard drive might contain some of your most important data such as financial documents, family pictures, and Uncle Fred’s award-winning chili recipe. To keep this information accessible at all times, it’s important to understand how hard drive failure occurs and when to get help.

Causes of Hard Drive Failure

Physical contact, heat, water, power surges, dust and time are the enemies of hard drives. While being quite reliable, even the smallest fault can cause a hard drive to fail. Understanding when there’s a problem and taking simple precautionary steps could end up saving your data someday!

•  Mechanical damage and failure
  • Heat – a malfunctioning fan or blocked vent could overheat your CPU
  • Water – damaging in the forms of spills, natural disasters and humidity
  • Shock/Drop – dropping a hard drive or vibration over time can cause various part to stop working
  • Electrical – power surges can fry the electrical components in a computer
• Logical failure
  • Software or firmware – malware and other viruses can hold your files hostage
  • User error – editing the system registry or other setting can affect your hard drives ability to be recognized

Warning Signs

1. Repeated system crashes or reboots, unresponsive or blank screen
2. Error messages when trying to access files
3. Missing files, files being deleted or moved
4. CPU is unusually slow accessing and opening files
5. Irregular noises such as clicking, tapping, grinding, etc.

When to Get Help

Hard drive failure is a frustrating experience because it prevents you from accessing the files you want. Not only is it an inconvenience, but in the case of corrupted files, it could place your data at risk–especially if malware infected your device.

When you notice problems with your hard drive, it’s important to seek help immediately. Reputation is everything when searching for data recovery companies; this is why SalvageData is an excellent option to consider.

We’ve drawn rave reviews from industry publications and customers alike due to our attentive service. When you go with us, you’re choosing a partner who’s adept at recovering files from a variety of hard drive types. We provide upfront pricing so you have all the information you need ahead of time.

Add to this a data recovery team with top of the line industry experience and state-of-the-art tools, and you’ll have confidence they’ll do the job well. When your hard drive acts wonky, contact us to check it out for you. You’ll be glad you did.