What Happens When a Hard Drive Fails?

Traditional hard drives (HDD) are small mechanical machines with moving parts, exact but also fragile, which can give many headaches, but what happens? When did a hard drive fail?

Before explaining what happens when a hard disk stops working, it is necessary to know what a hard disk is and what it is made of. We are talking specifically about the rigid hard drives (HDD) used in most computers until very recently and all kinds of mobile devices.

The technology has come a long way since the first disk introduced by IBM in 1956 with increasingly smaller hard drives that we can even keep in our pockets, but the operation is the same.

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Each hard disk comprises one or more rigid aluminum or glass disks called platters, joined by the same axis that rotates inside a metal case at a speed that usually oscillates between 5400 and 7200 pm.

Secondly, you must learn how to fix hard drive? Or what is the best one? On each of the faces of the platters that make up the hard disk, there is a read/write head that never touches the platter but rather floats on a very thin layer of air of a few nano meters generated by the rotation of the disks. An engineering masterpiece that powers the hard drive and, by extension, the computer.

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Even though we now store data in the cloud, the hard drive is still irreplaceable for many people. Our hard drive can become quite full, especially when we keep large files like photos and videos.

If a hard drive fails, two things can happen. On the one hand, the so-called logical failure, when the components do not suffer physical damage, but the disk cannot search and find its information due to accidental formatting or a corrupted file system. However, the data still exists on the hard disk (HDD) unless the information is overwritten.

Much more problematic is usually the mechanical failure of a hard drive when the physical damage to its components does occur. For example, when the head comes into contact with the disc in an impact equivalent to an airplane hitting the ground so hard that it leaves a mark on the asphalt.

In this scenario, one of the worst possible, the head scratches the hard disk platter, and the data contained in that part becomes history. Other hard drive mechanical failures are less dramatic, such as when the heads lose their pinpoint alignment or the hard drive motor fails.

Logic failures account for about 20 percent of traditional hard disk (HDD) losses, while physical failures account for the remaining 80 percent, particularly in reader head errors.

Mechanical failures are often caused by shocks as hard drives are extremely fragile. If the hard disk is turned on, any drastic movement can lead to loss.

On the other hand, hard drives can also be damaged electronically due to internal circuit problems, especially if the computer equipment overheats frequently.

Repairs your Broken Hard Drive’s Bad Sectors!

Fixing or repairing a damaged hard drive usually results in a hefty bill. It is not easy to rescue the information from a damaged HDD, and it is often impossible to recover all the files one hundred percent. Therefore, it is always advisable to follow a specialist Company who is expert in data recovery services and small tips to take care of and avoid hard disk failures:

  • Handle a hard drive and any device containing one with great care.
  • Avoid moving a PC having a hard drive unless the computer is turned off.
  • Protect your PC from overheating.
  • Make frequent backups and save your personnel files on another device or in the cloud.

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