How to Recover Files from A Failed Hard Drive? A Quick Guide
“My local machine was working in an appropriate manner until yesterday. But today, my hard drive failed abruptly. The computer will not boot, and I have no backup of my data. Since the desktop consists of some necessary work files, which I need to recover from a failed hard drive, please suggest an appropriate method to recover files from a failed hard drive. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.”
The hard drive is the data storage hardware device in a computer. The operating system, software files, and data are stored on the hard drive. But sometimes the hard drive fails for various reasons. This is a cumbersome situation for anyone. Most of the users are looking for a solution to retrieve lost files from a failed hard disk. So, in this article, we have mainly discussed the ways to recover data files from a failed hard drive. These methods may facilitate easy recovery of your only copies of essential documents, assignment files, cherished photos, and videos from your device’s internal and external storage.
Reasons Behind Hard Drive Failure
There are three reasons behind the hard drive failure. All are listed below; have a look:
- Physical Damage: Excessive heat and water will lead to serious damage to hard drive components. As the temperature rises, disk platters expand and then contract when the temperature decreases. This can lead to a distorted magnetic surface that may cause microcracks, a severe defect that settles data. Moreover, water damage caused by spilling liquid over a device is always bad news. Only specially developed machines will be there with adequate protection built in. Most devices on the market are simply not designed to be a barrier against water or any other liquids. Water causes unwanted surges in the electrical current, which can harm the user’s device.
- Logical Failure: When damage occurs in a hard drive’s file structure or software rather than the actual hardware, this is called logical failure. This is also referred to as a non-physical failure. Many factors can contribute to logical failure, consisting of malware infections, corrupted files, and human error. Most of the time, the failure can be large enough that the system will not boot up. But, in most cases of logical failure, a hard drive recovery utility can successfully restore files because no damage occurs to the drive’s hardware.
- Mechanical Failure: While most elements of a computer are electrical, the hard drive is one of the few mechanical parts. Thus, it will eventually fail at some point. This type of failure occurs when the read-write head or other parts become faulty as a result of normal use.
Manual Tricks to Recover Files from a Failed Hard Drive
This manual method is divided into two techniques. Both are discussed below in a descriptive manner. You just need to follow the techniques in sequence to restore data files from failed hard disk.
Technique 1: Connect the Failed Drive to a New Computer
When you find that your storage device, such as a hard drive, has failed or cannot be detected by your computer, you can try to connect your device to a new computer to see whether it is really failed or not.
If your hard drive is physically damaged, then take your device to be repaired at a manual data recovery center.
Technique 2: Recover Files from Failed Hard Drive Using Disk Management
If you need to directly get all the files back now, you have to perform this method. It will help you recover files from your failed hard drive. Follow the below-outlined steps:
- Initially, click on “Start” and type “Diskmgmt.msc,” then hit Enter.
- Now, open Device Manager and expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. After that, check out whether any device shows up as unrecognized.
- If it shows up as unrecognized, go to the driver’s tab and delete or uninstall the driver. Then check out whether the hard drive shows up in My Computer or not.
- Additionally, if it does not show up, you have to reboot or restart the system.
- At the final step, after rebooting the PC, the hard drive can be read and detected successfully.
Effortless Approach to Recovering Files from a Failed Hard Drive
When a user tries to execute the above-mentioned manual solution to restore data from failed hard disk but still has a fear of data loss, fortunately, third-party applications such as Hard Drive Data Recovery Software are always available to recover permanently deleted word documents from hard drives. This recovery application is capable enough to restore deleted files from a failed hard drive.
This facilitates an understandable user interface so a novice user can also avail of it. This tool is equipped with advanced technology and is able to recover files after a hard drive failure without losing a bit of data. Moreover, it just takes a few minutes to recover deleted PST file from computer and save files from a failed hard drive.
Also Read: How Can I Partition My Hard Drive without Formatting in Windows?
Complete Process to Restore Data from Failed Hard Disk
- Download and install the application on the Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 systems.
- After that, Choose the the scan or Format option to recover your failed data.
- Next, the preview all restored data file in the application panel.
- Hit the save Option to save recovered data at the desired destination.
Final Verdict
Sometimes, users may find an alternative to recover files from a failed hard drive. As we discussed the manual and automated approaches to doing the same, the free solution does not provide the surety to recover permanently deleted data from hard drive in an appropriate manner. So, we recommend going with a professional tool.
This software easily recovers files from a failed hard drive without wasting your valuable time. It has no compatibility issue; the software supports all versions of the Windows operating system. Thus, it totally depends on the user which one they want to choose. They can opt for any one of them, as per their requirements.
