Before you venture into hard disk data recovery business, it is necessary to know the causes of hard disk failure. The causes can be either logical failture, or electrical failture or mechanical failture.
- Logical causes include problems with the boot sector of the hard drive which leads to non-booting of Windows. In this case, you would be able to you’re your computer from another disk. You can then investigate if you have problems with the boot sector or you have bad sectors on the disk itself. Hard disk data recovery in this case can be possible via Data Recovery Software.
- Electrical causes include problems caused due to voltage problems which may have led to the burning of the circuit board. For this you may have to open your desktop’s ATX box or your laptop’s bottom cover. Ensure that you have shut off the electrical supply to your machine and are working in a static-free environment. You also need to wear an ESD wrist strap. Under no circumstances must you touch the circuit board as this might damage the disk head. Just try to see if you can see any signs of burnt components or any signs of burns on the circuit board. In this case, you can contact your hardware supplier or a service agent to figure out the next step.
- Mechanical problems are caused when the hard drive and / or its parts have been physically damaged due to a number of causes. You may hear clicking sounds from the hard disk itself. This kind of failure can also be caused by dropping the hard disk or exposing it to water or humid atmospheres. Under no circumstances must you try to shake the hard disk or remove the hard disk cover. Most times, a physical repair of hard disks or their parts is not possible. You can find a data recovery service provider who may be able to help you with this problem. Look for service providers who have a ‘No Data, No Pay’ agreement.
Hard Disks of computers – either laptops or desktops – are susceptible to failure where the data that you have stored on it either disappears / cannot be found. The good news is that this data can often be recovered. There are various ways of doing so.
Here are some tips for general hard disk data recovery tips suggested by professionals in this field:
- Always use firewalls and good virus protection programs for your computer.
- Don’t run the disk defragmenter if you want to recover a file that you have ended up deleting. Use a Data Recovery Software first. Doing so will increase your chances of recovering the lost data.
- Programs such as scandisk, chkdsk or Norton Disk Doctor will not help you with data recovery. In fact, they may often end up hinder the process of hard disk data recovery.
- If your computer is not booting, you can try booting it in safe mode and try to disable or uninstall any recently installed programs which may have caused the problem. You can also try and see if running System Restore can solve the problem effectively.
- Before you buy data recovery software, ensure that you know exactly what kind of data it recovers. Instead of trying out a variety of softwares, first know what kind of data you want to recover and then look for that data recovery software which will meet your needs.
- Know what kind of file system your computer’s hard drive is using. This will help in locating the right kind of data recovery software for your computer data recovery process. Similarly, knowing the file system used by your laptop will help in the laptop data recovery process.
- The best tip ever is to always keep a backup of your important data.
- Sometimes it may not be possible to constantly keep backing up data, especially with recent files. If your hard disk crashes while you are working, don’t try to save the file as you may also end up losing data that has been saved earlier.
- Before you go to the hard disk data recovery experts make sure that you know the relevant details such as the Operating System, the details of what happened before your hard disk failed, and if your computer still recognizes the drive or not.
Thus, based on the causes of hard disk failure you can find different methods of hard disk data recovery.
These tips will help you identify the problem with your hard disk and even help you with hard disk data recovery on your own. However, if you are unsure, then it is best that you find a data recovery service provider who offers a ‘No Data, No Pay’ agreement.