They say your life flashes earlier your eyes before you lot (think you) dice. When I realized my hard bulldoze was declining, it was a lilliputian similar that. All I could remember of were the hundreds of photos I didn't accept a backup of. I was determined to bring them back and I succeeded; sort of.

If your hard disk drive has failed, this guide will assist yous with the repair and data recovery. (If the device is fine, these five methods will help you get information off the hard drive.) Are you looking for assist with a failed solid country drive? It'due south all-time to plow to an expert right away.

My Dead Hard Drive Story

Several years ago, I experienced a difficult drive failure. My laptop acted strangely. When the issues persisted later on a reboot, I knew it was more than an overstretched RAM. I immediately started to back upwards contempo files. Well-nigh half an hour later, the hard drive failed audibly and the laptop wouldn't boot anymore.

I had backups, simply not of everything. Just weeks earlier my backup drive had reached capacity. To back upwards important piece of work files, I had decided to delete my personal photos. Ironically, I had already purchased a new external drive, just I had not taken the time to create a total fill-in. Now my photos were lost and I was devastated.

Over the next couple of weeks, I researched ways to recover the data and considered doing everything under the lord's day---and did most of it---to revive the old hard drive. This commodity is the result of that endeavor.

External Hard Bulldoze? Cheque the Enclosure and Cables

When your external hard drive fails, it tin exercise so for nevertheless reasons an internal bulldoze can fail. Sometimes, however, it's non the drive that stops working, but a connection inside the enclosure! And in that example, the bulldoze is easy to revive.

Before you open up whatever hardware, exist certain to belch your body'southward static electricity, i.due east. ground yourself. Remove the hard drive from its casing and use an IDE/SATA data cable and power connector to install the bulldoze internally on your desktop computer. Alternatively, you tin go an IDE/SATA to USB adapter or a new USB enclosure, so you tin can hook the drive upwards externally via USB.

SATA and IDE connector cabels.
Epitome Credit: ivonnewierink/DepositPhotos

The image higher up shows a SATA connector (front) and an IDE connector (back).

Once y'all re-continued the external drive to your computer, given the enclosure was the culprit, Windows should recognize information technology and assign a drive letter. The drive should popular up nether File Explorer > This PC. You can besides check under Disk drives in the Device Manager (press Windows + X to observe the option).

If the drive didn't show upward anywhere, y'all can try to manually detect your drive to further narrow down the consequence; the procedure is described further down.

Internal Difficult Drive? Cheque All Cable Connections

Sometimes, information technology's not the drive that failed, just the physical connectedness of cables that connect the bulldoze with the calculator'due south motherboard. You can only wish that this is your trouble! So before you lot hire someone, make certain the information and ability cables are firmly connected on both ends.

This is an image of a SATA hard disk drive with a Molex connector and SATA cable

To foreclose hazards to your health, it's essential to turn off the estimator and unplug the ability cord. As mentioned above, you also need to belch your torso's static electricity, i.e. ground yourself before you get working on your computer'southward internals. Then open the case and make sure all connections are OK.

Our guide on how to physically install an internal hard drive shows which connections to picket out for.

Once you have fabricated sure the connections are OK, boot the computer again. If you have a desktop computer, you tin can leave the instance open, merely stay clear of its interior.

Does Your Hard Drive Make Sounds?

As you are trying to become the hard drive to run, listen to the sound it is making. Is it completely dead? Or is it still spinning? What exactly does information technology sound like? Compare your sound to the list of hard drive sounds provided by Data Cent. This volition help yous diagnose the type of damage.

Hard Disk Drive Repair
Epitome Credit: andreyuu/DepositPhotos

The damage can be either internal or external. A clicking sound, for example, suggests the head may be malfunctioning, i.due east. internal damage. A completely dead bulldoze, on the other paw, could be due to a faulty printed circuit lath (PCB), which would be external harm.

Does Windows Recognize Your Hard Drive?

Sometimes, you can hear your drive spinning, but information technology never pops upward. Or maybe it's completely dead. To pinpoint the type of damage, try to manually cheque whether or not your reckoner recognizes the bulldoze.

Y'all can practise this via the BIOS in case information technology's the primary hard bulldoze and your calculator no longer boots. After you plow on the calculator, enter the BIOS by pressing a trigger primal, which could be Del, Esc, F2, or F10, depending on the manufacturer.

Inside the BIOS, navigate through the available menus to find where it lists which types of drives are connected to the computer. You should find this information nether the Avant-garde menu, just yous might too find it indirectly nether Kicking settings.

This image depicts a BIOS Boot Settings menu

If you accept hooked up the bulldoze to another figurer, you don't need to access the BIOS at all. In Windows, click the primal combination Windows + R, which will launch the Run input window.

Type cmd into the field and hit Enter. This will open the Control Prompt. Here type diskpart and hit Enter, to open up the corresponding tool. In the diskpart window, type list volume and hit Enter to prove all drives connected to your reckoner.

this image depicts a diskpart list volume menu from within the Windows Diskpart.exe executable

If Windows recognized your bulldoze, meaning it appears under diskpart, only doesn't show up as an accessible drive, chances are Windows only recognizes the PCB, but the drive itself is damaged (internal damage). In other words, if the drive is recognized in whatsoever shape or form, the PCB is most probable working and replacing it will not ready the hard drive!

Is the Printed Excursion Board Cleaved?

Technically, the external PCB is relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to replace. However, we strongly advise against swapping out the PCB yourself.It's not as simple every bit finding a matching model.

Unless your hard bulldoze is ancient, the PCB and disk will use a unique microcode to communicate. If yous replace a PCB of a drive that requires this microcode to boot, you could permanently damage your information.

Hard Disk Drive with removed Printed Circuit Board
Paradigm Credit: firstblood/DepositPhotos

Co-ordinate to Datarecovery.com, specialists tin "copy, rewrite, or repair the micrcode using avant-garde equipment."

Witchcraft and Wizardry

When my hard drive failed, the PCB was fine; the bulldoze was however recognized and spinning, but it didn't show up in Windows, meaning I could not access it, and no software recovery tool could help me, either.

So I put my last hope into some of those obscure tricks that you'll find floating around the internet, like shaking the drive, hitting it onto a difficult surface, exposing it to dry out oestrus in the oven, or sticking it in the freezer overnight. If you lot have any idea how a hard drive works, then all of these methods should give you lot the shivers!

Frozen Hard Disk Drive
Image Credit: foxiedelmar/DepositPhotos

Well, I didn't dare to cook my drive, just my suspicion was that the head was stuck. So I did milkshake it; to no avail. Since I could follow the reasoning, I also wrapped my drive in an airtight Ziploc back and stuck information technology in the freezer overnight. The idea is that low temperatures cause metals to compress and contract.

So if the caput was stuck, the cold might get it unstuck. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. And I probably acquired condensation to settle on the difficult bulldoze platter, which could take acquired a lot more damage. I somewhen gave up and stored the bulldoze for a future in which I was hoping to be able to afford professional data recovery.

Backup Strategy Advice

Should you succeed with 1 of the questionable methods higher up, note that the set up will exist temporary! So be prepared. Know exactly what you want to back upwards and how. Accept the right backup software to apace copy your information and have enough storage space available.

If you desire to re-create files manually, only re-create one fix of files at a time! If you make the head bound back and along betwixt likewise many files past kick off multiple re-create-and-paste processes, you will slow downwards the overall fill-in process and increase the likelihood of a fatal head crash.

Consult a Specialist for Professional person Information Recovery

If you can beget professional help or just cannot beget to wait for a miracle, do consult a specialist. My recommendation is to go with a reputable company.

They should work with professional person technicians and tools, be able to open your hard bulldoze in clean rooms or under dust-free conditions, follow industry standards, and have solid credentials, as well as excellent recommendations. After all, you lot will trust them with your individual data.

Kroll Ontrack, one of the virtually reputable companies in the market, offers a free consultation and price evaluation.

Before you pick a company, be sure you understand the conditions! Nearly charge just for looking at the drive and making a recommendation. They will charge extra for actually attempting to recover the information. Some will charge a full recovery fee, even if they failed to recover the data.

Revive Your Drive

Diagnosing and fixing a broken difficult drive is serious business organization. Do take it seriously, but also try to exclude some of the more elementary-to-fix culprits earlier you fork out hundreds of dollars to a specialist. The more y'all know, the amend. How far yous go to diagnose and gear up your hard drive volition depend on how important the data is for you.

You probably wonder what happened with my hard drive. Well, one fine mean solar day, when I was dissolving my apartment, I decided to requite it one last chance and so let go of it. More 2 years after I had tried everything I dared to go it to work, again and again for weeks, I simply plugged information technology in and it simply worked.

I recovered all my data. The drive actually continued to work for many more years. Call me lucky!

Fifty-fifty if you managed to repair your bulldoze and recovered all your data, I would not trust this hard drive once more. Here's what you lot can exercise with your onetime hard drive and here'southward what you should know while buying a new difficult drive.

And on the subject of data recovery, it'due south a good idea to learn how to rescue your information from a malware-infected system.

Image credit: Dead HDD via Flickr

We promise you like the items we recommend and discuss! MUO has affiliate and sponsored partnerships, so nosotros receive a share of the acquirement from some of your purchases. This won't touch on the cost you pay and helps u.s.a. offer the best product recommendations.

Mouse Not Working in Windows 10? How to Fix Your Mouse Problems

Read Next