Dealing With Hard Disk Failure #PublishingArticles

Dealing With Hard Disk Failure #PublishingArticles

We all have our personal data stored on our devices and system. Data like photos, files, folders, sensitive information, videos and audio files are stored on hard drives. However, it is not always that whatever you stored will stay there forever. Chances are that you might face disk failure. The article discusses tips and tricks to deal with hard disk failure.

Just like each electronic gadget, your hard drive too has a limited capacity and life. You will be able to pull through 3-5 years of your hard drive for storage purpose. It does seem to be a short while for storing all the information that you need. It suggests that you have to be careful with all your hard drive storage as there are high chances that it might just fail due to some technical error. Hard disk failure often happens, but it might be too late for you to realize it. If it takes place then, you should know how to deal with it. Given here are some pointers to help you deal with the disk failure.

Following are some of the hard disk failure symptoms:

Common Errors

The first thing that you will realize is the dwindling system performance. Your system will get slow, and you will notice that it is difficult to work. Another thing that you will come across is the BSOD or the blue screen of death. These signs are specifically related to disk failure in particular. No matter what the underlying issue is, the symptoms are clear, and they appear as a result of disk trouble. Even if you decide to deal with by fresh installation or the Safe Mode option the trouble persists.

Data Corruption

If you find trouble with launching files that fail to open, face errors while saving documents and files that disappear then you need to find a solution. It is all because the system is having multiple issues that eventually start meddling with the file storage system. Gradually all this leads to drive failure.

Bad Sectors

Bad sectors are associated with a specific area in the drive that refuses data maintenance. These sectors are masked by default in the OS and for this reason it is hard to locate them. If you are already using a large amount of the disk space then, it is almost impossible to look for bad sectors. If you know how to identify it then, you can do something to eliminate it.

Running manual disk check is one thing that you can do to locate errors in your Windows. If you are running Windows 7 then navigate to Start-> Computer, right click the disk icon or the partition that you want to check. Now go through Select-> Properties-> Tools->Check. When you reach the Checking Disk window, select the option of €Automatically fix errors and Scan.' You will be able to scan for bad sectors.

Sounds

The system should run smoothly and without making strange sounds. However, if you have noticed that the system is emitting strange sounds then you need to be alarmed. The disk is trying to recover from errors and re-writing data, and this is why you hear that sound. The hardware components might be on the verge of failing.

Reading Data

You can utilize some specific tools that will help you deal with the problem of disk failure. Using the SMART data technique, you can easily analyze the changes in the OS. However, you still cannot be sure about using this technique, as it is not guaranteed to provide 100% results.

Facing hard drive error

After understanding the definite signs of hard disk error, you need to do things that will help you with data restore and deal with the trouble at hand. The first thing that you should consider is that you need to have a backup plan or a second drive for taking backup. This way you will not lose your precious data even when one of them fails. Another thing that you can do is to keep a copy of your data at another location. For example, you can either keep a drive backup with your friend or use a remote server for this purpose. An online backup solution is yet another way of ensuring that your data get automatically stored as you make changes.

You should remember that not every software error is about hard disk error. The hard disk failure symptoms given are a part of the system that are secondary to other underlying trouble. However, even if the warning signs mentioned here are prevalent then you should not ignore them.

Source: Polly M Quinton