Data Backup/Recovery

Hard drive failure is one of the most common and frustrating problems for computer users, but it’s also one of the easiest problems to recover from. If you do suspect that your hard drive has failed, your first course of action should always be to turn off your system. Your second should be contact us for a diagnostic.

The Specific Causes Of Hard Drive Failure

Hard disk drives (or HDD) are mechanical. Most are based on a “spindle and platter” system that works much in the way a record player does. The arm reads the data on the platter, and your system uses it for pretty much everything on your computer.

The second type of hard drive, and one that has become extremely popular, is the Solid State Drive or SSD. This type of hard disk uses an electrical cell grid to write data directly to a memory module, exactly like the RAM in your system. These drives read and write data extremely quickly and are a key reason why today’s computers are so fast.

Now, the key cause of failure for either an HDD or an SSD is one thing: mechanical failure.

For HDD drives, this means the spindle and platter system may be wearing out or losing precision due to age or heavy use.

For SSD drives, the “blocks” to which data is written do wear out. They can only be written too a certain number of times, and then, without warning, your drive is dead.
Note: SSD Failure are particularly rare at this point. Usually a new computer with an SSD drive usually last up to 10 years.
Warning: Data Recovery is not possible for Data Loss under TRIM technology. More Info Below


Some other key causes include:

Excessive heat – Either form of drive will fail if used continually in a very hot environment or improperly cooled computer system
Water Damage – These are electronics, and one of life’s harshest equations is Water+Electronics=Damage. (Read more about water damaged hard drives)
Static Electricity – A dry environment can make for high amounts of static electricity.
Lightning or power surges – A mass shock to your computer system can quickly spell the end of a hard drive.
High Magnetic Fields – Magnets and hard drives of any kind are a bad mix.
Impact – The parts inside a hard drive are very sensitive. Dropping a drive or laptop can cause immediate hard drive failure

How S.M.A.R.T. Helps Warn You

S.M.A.R.T., or Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, is an early warning system for hard drives that first gained popularity around 2004. SMART does not actually prevent hard disk or SSD failure, but it does warn you of the potential.

When SMART is activated, it will usually warn the user that the hard drive may have issues during the boot sequence. But, the unfortunate fact is that many computer manufacturers do not automatically enable SMART.

A quick web search for your specific model will often tell you if SMART is activated on your computer.

If you have Windows and you want to see your SMART details right now, do this:

• First, open a Command Prompt window. (Press the Windows key, type Command Prompt, and press Enter.)
  

• Once you have a Command Prompt window, type the following commands, pressing Enter after each one:
  

  wmic
  diskdrive get status

• If there are no SMART errors, you should see Three OKs. Those 3 OKs mean that yes, you’re OK. Now backup that hard drive!
  

Warning Signs That Suggest Failure Is Imminent

If you haven’t had the opportunity to check your SMART settings (see above), but suspect that your hard drive may be failing, you may consider the following issues as warnings that a hard drive crash is on its way:

• Computer Crashes Or Blue Screen Of Death – A classic Windows scenario that is all but licked with the newer versions starting at Windows 7 and extending to 8 and now 10. This is why if you do experience a crash, it may be a big deal. Backup that drive!

• Error Messages While Copying Or Moving Files – Believe us, this is not something that happens unless there are disk problems at hand. At the very least, it might be a good time to do a SMART test (as above) or do a disk check by going into Explorer, right clicking on the problematic drive, clicking the Tools tab and clicking the “Check” button.

• Losing Files Without Notice – This can sometimes mean that your drive is having issues. A disk check again may help.

• File Access Takes A Long Time – Today’s hard drives are fast. If your system was made in the past 10 years, you shouldn’t be waiting long periods of time for your file access.

• Noise – Most recently manufactured hard drives are whisper quiet. Any noise at all, particularly a clicking hard drive noise, can mean the drive may be on its last legs. Do your best to backup whatever you can, or shut down the system and call us (our number is above 🙂 ).

Macbook Hard Drive Failure Signs

You can easily check to see if you are in need of a New Hard Drive and Data Recovery using Apple’s Disk Utility. Here’s how to do it:

• Launch Disk Utility, found within the "/Applications/Utilities" folder

• Select the Mac hard drive from the left side menu and click on the “First Aid” tab

• Click on “Verify Disk” in the lower right corner and let it run

You will find the window populating with messages about the drives health, messages that indicate things are fine appear in black, messages that indicate something is wrong appears in red. Disk Utility should resemble something like the following screen shot:

Check Hard Drive health of a Mac with OS X Disk Utility

For the vast majority of users, what you see will look something like this, finalizing with a message of “The partition map appears to be OK”, indicating that no errors have been found:

Verifying partition map for “APPLE Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
The partition map appears to be OK

**SSD Trim - Data Recovery Not Possible

The reason that data recovery software can't recover data from SSDs is simple. Virtually all current SSDs use so-called TRIM technology that increases efficiency and disk life by clearing disk sectors that are not being used. One result of this is that the data can't be recovered by software, even if the file system retains its record of the sectors where the data used to be. With traditional spinning hard drives and USB flash drives, file recovery is relatively simple. Recovery software can find the location of a file's data even if you've emptied the Recycle Bin, often even if you've reformatted the disk. But once a file is deleted from an SSD, and the Recycle Bin has been emptied, there's no hope of ever getting that file back again, unless you have a backup somewhere.

Conclusion

A few final notes: relying on a hard drive being healthy is not an alternative to having backups, you need to backup your Computer with regularity. Hard drives fail, it’s a fact of computing life. It’s also important to note that software checks aren't 100% conclusive in determining your drive health, and if you hear weird sounds coming out of the hard drive it’s probably a good time to speak to us and prepare for a drive swap. Dat-A-Syst will do what is necessary to bring your computer back to life!