How to perform data recovery from a Failed Hard Drive?
A failed hard drive means a full stop to all the work that you have been doing on your computer. It means that you can no longer access your files, your computer will even refuse to come on, and you will feel as if the world has come crashing down on your shoulders.
It is really not quite all that bad. There are many signs that your hard drive is about to go off into the deep end, you just have to learn to recognize them, and then take appropriate action. The trick lies in catching the faults as soon as they begin to appear.So what are the signs which point towards an impending failure of the hard drive? If files begin to disappear or it takes too long to access them, if the speed of the computer slows down noticeably, if your operating system shows frequent error messages, if your files appear to be scrambled or incoherent – these are but a few pointers towards a failed hard drive or a drive which is about to give you a lot of trouble.
Often, however the failure is just mechanical, there is little you can do about it or anticipate it. Occasionally a grinding sound can be heard or there is a sound of metal against metal – once again pointers towards a problem in the hard disk.
The first step always is to take a complete backup if possible. At least there will be another source for all the data. But, if your disk has already got too many problems then you need to take more severe steps. Chkdsk and other such softwares on the computer cannot identify a failing hard disk but they can show up and repair some of the bad sectors, thereby reducing the harm that can be caused.
A failed hard drive due to a software problem can be regenerated and repaired much faster. Recovery softwares are very effective in these situations and you can often achieve a great deal of success. A corrupted operating system can easily be reloaded and can start working again
Failed Hard Drive due to physical malfunction are a different kettle of fish altogether. The danger here lies in the fact that you can lose even the data which is still surviving in this process. This needs to be done only by a qualified technician, and even though it will cost you a lot of money, in the interest of data protection, it is the only solution.