Unfortunately, there is no set time frame for a hard drive to fail. There are some scenarios where damage is obvious and others where the drive may continue to quietly operate in a failed state. An HDD can fail due to:
A user physically dropping the media, A virus attack on the operating system, Power surges and/or Internal components failing due to age
These are only some of the failure scenarios for an HDD and a user needs to assess the damage after an incident like those mentioned above.
HDD Physical Failure Signs
- Overheating
- Strange noises
- Blue Screen of Death errors
- Stuck spindle motor
- Inability for the device to boot
- Bad sectors prevent data access
HDD Logical Failure Signs
- Frequent error messages during normal operations
- Files and folders are disappearing or corrupted
- Irregular system crashes and disk errors
- File or folder names have changed
- Operating system won’t boot
- S.M.A.R.T. monitoring shows issue with HDD
What to Do When Your Hard Drive Fails
HDD users must pay attention to the warning signs above and check any noise or behavior that is out of the ordinary. Do not attempt to use software to fix the problem, as it may overwrite your files and make the problem worse. Especially in physically damaged cases, the software will not be able to run and retrieve files properly.
When you notice that your media is failing, power it down immediately. This is the best course of action to prevent data loss is to turn the HDD off.
After that, call our Geeks at Geek Helpline to set up a case and have our experienced engineers recover your data. Our engineers have worked with all makes and models of hard drives. Call us on 1300 433 554 to start your case and find out more about how to spot a hard drive failure.
or complete our Online Booking Form form today to set up an appointment with a computer repair technician