5 Common Signs of Hard Drive Failure: All You Need to Know
We all know and faced at times how dangerous hard drive failure could be. It is one of the leading causes of complete data loss from our systems.
Hard drive failure is a common sight today and it can cost hundreds and thousands of rupees to get your data back. Now, what if I say that you can identify that your hard drive might fail and you can save your data from being lost! Sounds interesting? It is related to identifying signs of hard drive failure. Continue to read below.
What is a hard drive failure?
According to the research available online, more than 140000 hard drive failures occur every week alone in the US. 60% of these failures occur due to mechanical issues and the rest happen due to other reasons.
This clearly means that you might not have faced a hard drive failure but there is a high chance that you have faced signs of hard drive failure.
Hard drive failure simply means that your system’s hard drive is not working and you cannot access your data anymore. There are three major causes of hard drive failures – logical, mechanical, and firmware.
Read Also : How to protect and fix your Macbook from water damages
A hard disk failure can happen in the course of regular work, or due to external factors such as fire, water or high magnetic fields, or a sharp impact, leading to a head crash. The stored data on the hard drive can become inaccessible which can cause data corruption.
5 signs of hard drive failure
Failure of a hard drive can be classified into two types – catastrophic and gradual. Catastrophic failure means a sudden and total failure of your hard drive in which it becomes highly difficult to recover your data. On the other hand, gradual failure is when the hard drive ages due to extended usage and time.
These signs of hard drive failure can help you identify gradual failures and keep your data secure. Let’s check them out.
Frequent freezes and crashes
System freezing or crashing is a common sight while performing heavy tasks like running Adobe software or a high-end game. However, if you find your system freezes or crashes frequently, it could be a sign that your hard drive is not working properly.
File crashes or missing files
If you think a file not opening normally is passable, it could be a sign that your hard drive is failing to do this task. Another case could be that you saved a file in a drive and that file is abruptly missing. There is no trace of it. It is essential to note these signs and store your data in a safe place.
Delay in opening files
Do your files take longer than usual time to open and show the content? For instance, if your system takes a long time to open media files and MS word files, it can be a sign of gradual hard drive failure.
Bad sectors
A bad sector is among the severe signs of a failing hard drive. It is a sector on the storage unit that is damaged and data cannot be stored. Although it can be fixed, there is a high chance of data being lost. A rising number of bad sectors can be a sign of hard drive failure which could be hard to find. Your precious data could be in danger.
S.M.A.R.T. error
S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. S.M.A.R.T. errors are important signs of hard drive failure that show near-term chances of drive failure. You can easily predict that your hard drive may fail soon and your data will be at risk. It is highly essential to keep a backup of your data and maintain consistent backups.
What should you do?
Facing any of the above signs of hard disk failure and afraid that your data is at risk? The best action you can take now is to keep a constant backup of your data either on an external hard drive or cloud to keep it safe.
Once done, you cannot just sit there and wait for your drive to fail completely. You need an expert consultation for your system. At HRC Data Recovery Mumbai services, we can help you fix your hard drive on your Mac and Windows systems and retrieve any data that has been lost.
Our team of expert technicians and computer engineers can help fix your device and ensure all your data is safe. It is important that you reach out to our customer representatives at +91 9323287758 . We offer free consultation services to our customers. Call us now!