A computer is in one sense like the human body.

If the battery is the heart of a computer, the life-force pumping electricity and power to all extremities, then the hard drive is like the computer’s brain: within it contains the device’s content and primary functionality.

Hard drive failure is fatal. 

Without fixing hard drive failure, your computer is useless.  

A man can live with a severed limb but not without his head.  

So too is a computer’s functionality completely dependent on the health of its hard drive.  Fixing hard drive failure is a necessary step in restoring your device back up to full speed.

Viruses and malware are common causes cause of hard drive failure and computer malfunction, infecting your computer and eating away at your data and personal information.  Being intelligent concerning your computer activities is another important way to fix hard drive failure before it even begins.

Protect Your Computer’s Hard Drive

Not only do hard drives provide the “cognitive” function of the computer but it also store all of its data.  Your computer’s hard drive is more valuable than you may realize and that is why it is important to take precautionary measures to ensure that your data and devices don’t get lost into a cyber black hole if your hard drive crashes or breaks.

Backup your data.  

There are many online services that offer data storage and syncing your information to the ever ambiguous “cloud”.  A more secure way to be proactive about your data is to buy and external hard drive.  With this, you can backup your computer’s data and files via USB or some other connection to your external hard drive so that data recovery in the event of computer malfunction will be more easily attainable..  

It is also important for the health of your hard drive to protect against viruses and malware.  Here are helpful tips to protect against viruses and scams:

 

  1. Regularly update your software
  2. Don’t open suspicious emails or click on links and attachments from people you don’t know
  3. Use an AntiVirus Software to protect and clean your hard drive
  4. Regularly backup your computer’s data
  5. Make sure to use strong passwords for your accounts
  6. Be careful with what you download
  7. Block pop up ads with a pop up blocker

How to Detect the Problem

There are several ways to troubleshoot your computer when it’s acting up to try and discern whether it is your hard drive that is at fault.

A hard drive could be damaged because of a physical mechanical error or because of some other software problem.  It is important to know the nature of your hard drive failure so that you can take the proper steps moving forward with repairing your device.

If your hard drive is audibly damaged and making irregular noises, turn your computer off at once.  Leaving your computer on with serious hard drive damage could lead to many issues such as severe data loss and harm to the internal mechanisms of your computer.

One way to troubleshoot the problem yourself is to use Window’s diagnostic tools.  This can run a scan of your computer’s hard drive and will attempt to fix hard drive failures automatically if it is able.

Hard Drive Repair Solutions

If your hard drive is making noises, it is most likely dead and in need of replacement.

To fix a physically broken hard drive, you can check that the hardware connections and power cables are secure and in order.  You can also open up the backside of your computer to check and see if there are signs of any other damage or irregularity to other components of the computer since something like a power surge could be causing your hard drive to temporarily fail.

If nothing physically seems to be wrong with your hard drive and you cannot find any viruses or errors while troubleshooting, check to make sure that your hard drive is formatted and recognized by your computer.

Recovering data from a damaged or dead hard drive can prove to be a long a difficult process and if you have valuable information you don’t want to lose, seeking professional help improves your changes exponentially of recovering your lost data while repairing your computer.

If you can, live without the lost data. 

As unfortunate as the case may be, it will be faster and cheaper for you to order and change out a broken hard drive yourself.  This could also be a good opportunity to upgrade your hard drive so you have more memory and fast performance speeds.

 

s

For fixing hard drive failure on desktop computers,

do not tilt the hard drive sideways if removing.  If you move it while the internal disk is still spinning, that can lead to more damage and data loss.  


If you have any more questions about hard drive failure signs or hard drives in general, call ProData Management for your answers.  Our experts at ProData have more than 25 years of experience in commercial data recovery.  Submit a case today!

Click to access the login or register cheese