Causes of hard drive failure

  1. Causes of hard drive failure
  2. The remaining fatal malfunctions of hard drives
  3. Hard drive overheating
  4. Physical deterioration
  5. Instead of epilogue

Any computer malfunction is in itself an unpleasant thing, especially if problems arise with hard drive which is directly the main collector of long-term information. And then 50 to 50, that personal data is stored, not to mention the health of the operating system. But what can cause damage to the hard drive, we will analyze with you below ...

The content of the article:

Causes of hard drive failure

Of course, the malfunctions considered below are local in nature, since they relate only to the usual hard drives and do not affect other devices of the computer. In this concept, SSD drives, although much higher in cost, have more stable performance indicators, as well as proven performance in practice.

There are several main factors that somehow lead to hard drive failure. Almost all of them are physical. And this is natural, since the hard disk has a physical device, consisting more often of a pair of metal disks and a magnetic read head. The disks rotate at a certain speed, which is supported from starting the computer to shutting it down. And the head, in turn, is a microscopic needle, which moves in the direction of the disk surfaces and magnetizes or demagnetizes certain areas of the disks, that is, either writes down “one” or erasing - “zero”.

So the most common type of malfunction is damage to the surface of the disk , which can occur due to a shock, power failure during operation, as well as prolonged operation. This may be accompanied by the appearance of "broken" sectors on the hard disk (bad block), which in turn can damage the information, or lead to the impossibility of further use.

Most often, the appearance is accompanied by problems with the system load or its performance (the appearance of a blue screen of death).

Of course, it is often possible to fix the “broken” sectors, and the hard drive may work for some time, but after recovery, it is worth thinking about purchasing a new drive, since the problem may continue!

“ Broken” sectors can be fixed with the help of special utilities such as MHDD or Victoria, or using standard Windows tools - hard disk checks. In the last article I described the launch of the system check and error correction using the command line tools, but you can also run the hard drive diagnostics through the usual system interface:

  1. To do this, go to the "Computer" and right-click the desired hard drive that requires verification.
  2. Then select the “Properties” item from the context menu.
  3. In the window that appears, go to the tab "Service"
  4. And click the first button “Perform a scan” on top. After the new window, configure the scan process, check the checkboxes in both add-on items, which will not only find errors on the hard disk, but also fix them if possible!
  5. If the selected drive is system, then you will need to restart the computer. When downloading, analysis and recovery of errors will be performed - it may take some time from 10 minutes to a couple of hours!

Note! There are "broken" sectors that can not be recovered, so it’s not a fact that in your case it will be possible to correct the errors!

The remaining fatal malfunctions of hard drives

Short circuit

As I said, there is more damage to the hard drive, which often ends with the failure of the drive. One of these is a short circuit, while the hard disk is not recommended to be used in the future, even if you managed to start the computer. It would be best to copy the information to a new drive using the services service center !

Hard drive overheating

Like any computer hardware, a hard disk has a temperature mode of operation, in violation of which you can cause overheating . To avoid this, it is worthwhile to take care of good ventilation in the system unit or the laptop case. More often, after overheating, it is undesirable to use the disk; it is also worth copying the data to a new storage device and discarding the damaged hard drive!

Physical deterioration

Any electronic device even has a working life or shelf life, not to be confused with storage or warranty period! In case of physical wear, the hard disk starts to work slower (due to a large number of sectors with delays!), As well as produce a characteristic noise, which is distinguishable in the usual working sound of ventilation. In this state, the hard drive can work stably for quite a long time, but it is worth thinking about buying a new equipment in order to avoid the loss of personal data!

Instead of epilogue

Of course, it is difficult to cover all the factors affecting the performance of hard drives, but it is quite possible to save the computer from possible malfunctions. Try to carry out periodic preventive maintenance of the computer (or laptop), do equipment diagnostics, monitor physical parameters (temperature, voltage) and stability of the operating system.

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