Beginner's Guide On Hard Drive Failure

Hard drives failure user guide for beginners. Common HDD failure including logical failure, mechanical failure, deleted failure, and firmware failure.

Table Of Content
Beginner's Guide On Hard Drive Failure

Hard Drives failures can cause many different kinds of problems. The majority of Hard Disk Drive failure issues fall into three basic categories:

  1. logical hard drive failures
  2. mechanical hard drive failures
  3. firmware hard drive failure

If you want to recover your data after a hard failure, you must understand what kind of failure you’ve experienced so that you can apply the correct solution.

In worse cases, our hard drive data recovery service provider should give explain things to you better!

Beginner's Guide On Hard Drive Failure | Ttr Data Recovery

What Happens During A Hard Drive Failure?

Hard drives store files using a number of different schemes that help them optimize space usage, deal with hard drive failure data errors and solve other common problems. When your computer encounters a drive whose storage doesn’t fit the expected patterns, it usually won’t recognize it as a readable device because it doesn’t understand what it contains.

42% of Hard Drive Failure Is Caused By Logical Failure!

How Do I Know If My Hard Drive Is Experiencing a Logical Hard Drive Failure?

Different things can induce logical failures. For instance, a hard drives Master Boot Record, or MBR, may have been corrupted so that the computer can’t retrieve boot instructions.

Similarly, viruses or malware can also cause operating systems, or OS, errors by preventing the retrieval of necessary files. In some cases, incorrectly shutting down, deleting, reformatting or partitioning files may cause corruption.

Each of these hard failure, like when getting a hard drive short DST check failed, have different symptoms. 

With MBR and OS file errors, your computer may not boot at all if the primary drive is faulty, or it may present errors. In other cases, it will start up, but it might be slow, or you’ll discover that data on a secondary drive mysteriously goes missing. 

In any case, you’re likely to require a recovery or hard drive data recovery or data retrieval service such as a deep scan to rebuild missing information.

How Do I Know If My Hard Drive Is Experiencing A Logical Hard Drive Failure | Ttr Data Recovery

40% of Hard Drive Failure Is Caused By Mechanical Failure!

Understanding Hard Drive Mechanical Failures

Your Drive Failures are complex devices that include numerous components. If any of these important parts become damaged due to shock or control errors, they may lose the ability to do their jobs.

To correct mechanical hard drive failure problems, most users have to send their drives off to clean-room facilities so that retrieval experts can open them, temporarily replace their parts and transfer the data they contain to fresh, functional drives.

How Do I Know If My Hard Drive Is Experiencing a Mechanical Failure?

Common symptoms of mechanical disk failures include:
How Do I Know If My Hard Drive Is Experiencing A Mechanical Failure | Ttr Data Recovery

7% of Hard Drive Failure Is Caused By Firmware Failure!

Understanding Hard Drive Firmware Failures

Firmware hard disk failure are similar to logical failures. Your computer will recognize the drive as a drive, but due to problems with its firmware, or the software that controls the device, it won’t be able to access the data. Only around 15 percent of data retrieval jobs necessitate firmware recovery, as it’s the least common failure mode.

How Do I Know If My Hard Drive Is Experiencing a Firmware Failure?

Firmware tells a hard drives how to start up and function normally. It lets the control circuit know when to turn on the motor, move the read-write heads to access or write data and perform other critical tasks. As a result, the symptoms of a failure may vary widely and produce a range of behaviors that are difficult to diagnose.

Where Is the Firmware Located?

Hard drives store firmware in different places. Part I is stored on the printed circuit board, or PCB, behind the drive, while Part II is written on the drive’s platters in specialized service tracks.

Since firmware is data instead of a physical component, it’s not something you can simply see and replace. Data recovery services and their specialists often have to reconstruct devices using parts from similar drives, which requires proper clean room facilities and experience.

Where Is The Firmware Located | Ttr Data Recovery

11% of Hard Drive Failure Is Caused By Deleted Failures!

You will know if the drive failures error your hard disk drives is experiencing is from a deleted data problem because most likely it’s something you did knowingly, or by mistake. Even errors such as deleted data can be reversed by capable data recovery experts, like the ones at TTR Data Recovery.

If your hard disk drive isn’t experiencing the symptoms of logical or mechanical drive failures, and your data seems to be missing, don’t act without giving our experts a call first.

Tommy Kh | Ttr Data Recovery

About the Author
Tommy Khamoushi, Data Recovery Expert

Tommy Khamoushi is an IACRB-certified Data Recovery Engineer and a Certified Forensic Computer Investigator. He has more than 20 years of experience in data recovery including providing technical support for the House of Representatives.

Tommy leads a team of data recovery engineers and experts at TTR Data Recovery to recover highly sensitive data for government agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and enterprise businesses using advanced and proprietary techniques and processes.

Connect with Tommy on LinkedIn.