6 Common Reasons For Hard Drive Failure

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9.20.2019

6 Common Reasons For Hard Drive Failure

6 Common Causes of Hard Drive Failure

Hard drive is the principal storage device of the computer which uses magnetic storage system or
electric cell grid to store informations. That is the reason for a hard disk to store large range of datas. Therefore it is essential to know the 6 common causes of hard drive failure.

There are 2 well known Hard drive models that are released, one is Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and the other is the Solid State Drive (SSD). A traditional hard disk drive uses spindle and platter system to store data. And a modern Solid State Drive uses electric cell grids to store data which are used by most of the computers today. Regardless of whatever the type of hard drive you are using it can experience high rate of damage since it is mechanical. All other components of your computer are electrical only. 

No matter how well you treat your hard drive, it may simply fail overtime. Therefore it is essential for a user to backup his/her data because no one knows the exact period of a hard drive crash. This is the cheaper option for you to avoid high cost of recovering data from a data recovery services. 

There are 2 common categories of reasons which causes the hard drive failures, those are physical and logical damages. Physical damages include any visible harm done to the internal components of the Hard drive. Logical damages include any corruption to the file system which is present on your hard drive. In this article I will be focusing on 6 Common Reasons For Hard Drive Failure. This will include both physical and logical damages.

Let's get into the topic,


1. Manufacturer's Fault


It is essential for a computer user to check the brand new hard drives they purchase. Many users do the mistake of not testing it. What happens is sometimes the hard drive manufacturers may have delivered a faulty hard drive without testing. After few days of using it, it may show signs and symptoms that it has a damage. In this case immediately contact the hard drive manufacturer for a replacement. 

Many hard drives comes under the warranty period of 2 years. If it is under the warranty period you will get a replacement without a cost. But the manufacturers cannot guarantee about the data stored inside the faulty hard drive. In that moment you should consider getting a support from the data recovery companies.



2. Physical Damages


Accidents happen knowing or unknowingly even though we are careful in handing the computer parts. Unlike other components of the computer your hard drive contains moving parts which are sensitive. Any impact to them might cost you unrecoverable damages. 

Without knowledge you might have dropped your hard drive from height or any other mishap. This results in head crash causing damages to the Spindle motor, read/write heads and the Printed Control Board (PCB). When mechanical failures occur it results in permanent data losses. So it is advisable not to turn on your system if any physical impacts happen.



3. Overheating


Excessive heat is bad to all the components of the computer including the hard drive. Heat will not only have a impact on the computer's performance it will decrease the overall lifespan of the computer parts. An ideal temperature of a hard drive should be around 40°C - 50°C. 

Factors such as improper ventilation system, hot environment or a faulty cooling fan will make the hard drive vulnerable to heat and exceed the ideal temperature of a hard drive. When the temperature increases , the disk platters present in the hard drive will get contracted, this will make the magnetic surface to be distorted. As a result the magnetic surface will develop cracks which ultimately restricts the data possession capability of the hard drive. 

[ FURTHER READING : 8 Best Ways to Cool down a Overheating Laptop ] 



4. Water Impact


Components present inside your computer is not water resistant including the hard drive. Slightest impact of water on any of the electronic devices may cause voltage spikes and surges which can be dangerous. In any of the electronic devices the consequences can be fixed but not in the case of a hard drive. The user has to suffer data losses due to this. 

Water or other liquids may have contacted the hard drive knowing or unknowingly. Sometimes you might have spilled water without your knowledge or experience a flood situation. Regardless of the reasons the components present inside your hard drive are sensitive to water, especially the platters which posses the data. Hard drive platters are one of the components that can corrode easily which will make the hard drive unreadable.


5. Power Failure


Power failure takes place when the flow of electricity inside a system gets interrupted. These can be caused due to numerous reasons ranging from lightning spikes, power cuts and many others. This will cause a mass shock to your overall system including the hard drive. When this happens the read/write heads present inside your hard drive gets damaged which can result in data losses. 

There are other possible reasons where the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) device you are using is a low quality. This may not provide required power (either too high or low) needed for the functioning of the computer. 


6. Data Corruption


Data corruption takes place when the system gets interrupted while writing data to the files present in the hard drive. In this case the larger files present on your hard drive tend to be more effected since it is taking larger place inside the platters. These may be cause due to reasons such as Improper shutdown of the system / Force restart, Not closing the programs properly, Using untrustworthy programs and Malware attacks. 

This result in the corruption of the respective files which they are present making them unreadable. When this happens there will be a software error causing soft bad sectors to be present on your hard drive's platters. A Platter is a place where all the datas of the hard drive are stored, any fault to them may restrict the storing of data on which hard drive they are present.



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