Hard drive, a storage device that everyone uses to store important data. But what happens if the hard drive fails? Obviously, data loss. You will lose your important data. So, there should be a solution. It would be great if we can somehow identify the hard drive failure signs that it creates before the death, we will be able to secure our data from losing. But is it possible? – yes, it is. Why not? You can easily identify the signs that your Hard drive is making before its failure in the near future. In this article, you can know about those hard drive failure signs in order to be ready to protect your essential data.
Hard Drive Failure Signs That You May Notice
There is one recommendation for you guys i.e. if your hard drive crosses 4 to 6 years of using, you should back up your data from this old hard drive to another storage device because the maximum lifespan of a hard drive is on an average 5 years. If your hard drive is older than that then maybe your hard drive is near to death. That’s why it would be very helpful for you to back up your data. Now let’s discuss that hard drive failure signs one by one briefly.
Computer Is Running Slow
There are many reasons available for slowing down computers but hard drive failure is one of the biggest reasons among this. It may be your computer’s hard drive which creates some issues while reading and writing data and that’s why your computer is slowing down to work or sometimes the monitor freezes and shows the ‘Blue Screen of Death’.
Also, if you notice that when you are copying some data into the hard drive, the write speed is significantly slow like 4 or 5 MB/s whereas the normal speed is above 50 MB/s, this is most likely because of bad hard drive or some problems related to it. For a long time, continually writing and reading data may lead to this. You can check read and write speed of your hard drive by simply copying some files into it or from it and also you can use a tool called ‘Crystal Disk Mark’. This tool can provide all the data related to reading and writing of an HDD like ‘sequential read-write’, ‘4K read-write’ etc.
Data corruption
Another indication of Hard drive failure is data corruption. Sometimes you may notice that copying one data into hard drives any folder leads to data corruption. That means, after copying the data, you cannot find the copied data because, for no reason, it was deleted or formatted. Yes, it may be happened because of some anti-virus as it deletes some files that seem harmful to it. But this case is occasional. But if you notice most of the time data becomes corrupted or deleted in the hard disk then you should be worried. It obviously is not the task of any anti-virus rather it is your hard drive that is creating that problem.
Accumulation of Bad sectors
In most of the cases, ‘bad sectors’ accumulation is the reason behind the hard drive failures. Basically, bad sectors are the physically damaged portion of the platter in the hard drive. This bad sector can spread like an epidemic. So, if your hard drive has multiple bad sectors on its platter then most probably the death for the hard drive is really near. In that case, first and foremost, you have to lock these bad sectors. Because the head in the hard drives spreads the bad sectors all over the hard drive by moving continuously on the platter from one portion to another. So, by locking the bad sectors, the arm/head skips those damaged sectors during the process of reading and writing. That means bad sectors cannot spread into the entire platter and the hard drive remains safe.
Here is a piece of important information to know that those bad sectors on the platter neither can read nor can write data. There are some in-build tools available in Windows and also some third-party tools available that you can install to check the situation of the bad sector which I will talk about in a moment.
Strange noises
If your hard drive produces any repetitive scratching noises or grinding noises while reading or writing data, unfortunately, it is confirmed that the death of your hard drive is knocking at the door. That’s why this repetitive sound is often called as ‘Click Of Death’. So, it will be an excellent idea for you to transfer the data to other storage devices.
These types of noises are produced if the arm in the hard drive touches the platter and it becomes scratched or the bearings of the motor creates some issues. If any portion of the platter becomes scratched, some data will definitely corrupt but if the motor creates any problem then there is a slight possibility that you can get your full data back.
Check Your Storage Devices’ Health
Actually, this important tip is only applicable if there is not a single sign of hard drive failures which I have mentioned before in this article. There is a free tool available which is called ‘Crystal Disk Info’. This tool has the ability to check your hard drives and SSDs if there is any problem or not. If there is any problem, it can also inform you where this exact problem happens, the number of bad sectors, what the temperature of the particular drive is and everything.
But the disadvantage with this tool is; you have to check with it manually. You should check monthly 1 or 2 times to know how healthy your storage devices are. So, unlike this, it is undoubtedly a great app to find out the issue so that you can be ready for it in the future and you can save your necessary data.
Want to buy a new hard drive, watch the video below
The Last Tip!
Lastly, I want to give you a final tip i.e. when your computer whether it is desktop or it is laptop is running, don’t shake the machine. If the machine is shaken by any means, the components of the hard drive like platter, arms, etc. can be damaged suddenly and you may have to face sudden data failure. So, to protect your data from sudden failures, don’t shake the computer you use. This same tip is also applied to the external hard drives. This is really an important thing to remember. Take care of your gadgets as much as possible if you are really a gadget lover.
Anyway, this the article about “hard drive failure signs before its death” by which you can come to know about your hard drive’s condition. Enjoyed this article! Read this What is Thunderbolt Port? Versions & Features Explained.