Hard Drive Failure – What has gone wrong?
Filed in External Hard Drive Data Recovery on Sep.13, 2009
Sk Data Recovery asked:
Around 400 million new hard drives are produced every year, and at any time, all over the world, a large number of them will be failing. The resulting loss of often crucial data is where the Data Recovery companies come in. Whether it is irreplaceable christening photographs from a domestic PC to the key business data from a multi-national’s RAID array, using specialist techniques and equipment they can recover the lost data.
But what actually goes wrong in a hard drive?, how does the data come to be lost? The need for Data recovery from hard drives arises from five basic causes:
Logical Failure Media degradation Firmware Failure Electronic or Electrical Failure Physical or Mechanical Failure
Logical Failure arises where there is no actual fault with the hard drive itself, but rather the data itself has a problem. This can range from the human factor where a file has been unintentionally deleted or the disk has been formatted or repartitioned, to instances of the file system or the computer operating system ’losing track’ of where the data has been stored. Data recovery in these cases needs specialist knowledge of file system architecture as well as specialist software applications.
Media Degradation results from reduced magnetic response from the coating of the disk itself. This causes the disk to be unable to read data back correctly from isolated areas of the disk known as ‘bad sectors’. Some bad sectors are present on all disks but the built-in firmware is designed to record where these sectors are and work around them. Bad sectors worsen the more a disk is written to and read from and this can lead to slow data retrieval and eventually to lost data or complete drive failure. To achieve data recovery in these cases requires equipment that can overcome the bad sector corruption to access the data.
Firmware Failure occurs when the built-in software that controls all the operation of the drive fails or becomes corrupted. Firmware operates completely independent of the computer operating system and cannot be accessed or repaired by a normal user. Only data recovery specialists will possess the equipment and applications needed to diagnose and repair firmware.
Electronic or Electrical Failure. The electronic components of a hard drive are found on it’s printed circuit board or PCB. These components can fail or can be damaged by voltage fluctuations or spikes. This often leads to failure of the motors that spin the disks or operate the read/write heads, rendering the drive completely inoperable. Data recovery laboratories can either carry out precision repairs to these components or may have to replace the entire PCB.
Physical or Mechanical Failure arise where components of the read/write system such as the heads suffer damage or fail to function correctly. This can arise from shock to the drive such as when an external hard drive gets knocked or dropped. Such faults are often accompanied by the drive making a ‘ticking’ or ‘clicking’ noise. Repair or replacement of these components can only be carried out in a laboratory ‘cleanroom’ environment, such as those operated by the major data recovery specialists.
Whatever the cause of hard drive failure and data loss, data recovery will only be relaibly achieved by experienced Data Recovery professionals using their specialist knowledge, equipment, applications and facilities. This knowledge should be at the forefront when choosing who to enlist to recover your important, valuable or irreplaceable data.
Milton
Around 400 million new hard drives are produced every year, and at any time, all over the world, a large number of them will be failing. The resulting loss of often crucial data is where the Data Recovery companies come in. Whether it is irreplaceable christening photographs from a domestic PC to the key business data from a multi-national’s RAID array, using specialist techniques and equipment they can recover the lost data.
But what actually goes wrong in a hard drive?, how does the data come to be lost? The need for Data recovery from hard drives arises from five basic causes:
Logical Failure Media degradation Firmware Failure Electronic or Electrical Failure Physical or Mechanical Failure
Logical Failure arises where there is no actual fault with the hard drive itself, but rather the data itself has a problem. This can range from the human factor where a file has been unintentionally deleted or the disk has been formatted or repartitioned, to instances of the file system or the computer operating system ’losing track’ of where the data has been stored. Data recovery in these cases needs specialist knowledge of file system architecture as well as specialist software applications.
Media Degradation results from reduced magnetic response from the coating of the disk itself. This causes the disk to be unable to read data back correctly from isolated areas of the disk known as ‘bad sectors’. Some bad sectors are present on all disks but the built-in firmware is designed to record where these sectors are and work around them. Bad sectors worsen the more a disk is written to and read from and this can lead to slow data retrieval and eventually to lost data or complete drive failure. To achieve data recovery in these cases requires equipment that can overcome the bad sector corruption to access the data.
Firmware Failure occurs when the built-in software that controls all the operation of the drive fails or becomes corrupted. Firmware operates completely independent of the computer operating system and cannot be accessed or repaired by a normal user. Only data recovery specialists will possess the equipment and applications needed to diagnose and repair firmware.
Electronic or Electrical Failure. The electronic components of a hard drive are found on it’s printed circuit board or PCB. These components can fail or can be damaged by voltage fluctuations or spikes. This often leads to failure of the motors that spin the disks or operate the read/write heads, rendering the drive completely inoperable. Data recovery laboratories can either carry out precision repairs to these components or may have to replace the entire PCB.
Physical or Mechanical Failure arise where components of the read/write system such as the heads suffer damage or fail to function correctly. This can arise from shock to the drive such as when an external hard drive gets knocked or dropped. Such faults are often accompanied by the drive making a ‘ticking’ or ‘clicking’ noise. Repair or replacement of these components can only be carried out in a laboratory ‘cleanroom’ environment, such as those operated by the major data recovery specialists.
Whatever the cause of hard drive failure and data loss, data recovery will only be relaibly achieved by experienced Data Recovery professionals using their specialist knowledge, equipment, applications and facilities. This knowledge should be at the forefront when choosing who to enlist to recover your important, valuable or irreplaceable data.
Milton
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