Categories: Technology

What To Do If A Hard Drive Is Corrupted?

The corruption of hard disk drives is not a new phenomenon. If you have been using computers for quite some time, then you must have come across a corrupted drive. It is possible to panic when faced with this reality, but there is nothing to worry about. Most of the disk corruptions are recoverable.

IMAGE: PEXELS

What Causes Hard Drive Issues

Before talking about what you should do when your hard disk drive is corrupted, let’s first explore the possible causes. A hard disk can get into this state due to many reasons, but the most common ones are the following:

Sudden power failure during the read and write processes
Virus or malware attack
Physical damage to the disk
Boot sector corruption
Disk drive nearing the end of life
File system damage
Software failures, etc.

Symptoms Of Hard Disk Corruption

How do you tell that your hard disk drive is corrupted? Again, there are many warning signs that something is wrong with your data storage drives. To increase the chances of data recovery and disk repair success, you need to identify the problem on time and take the necessary measures. The following are the common signs:

Blue screen of death, usually seen in computers running Windows OS

File not found error when your computer is rebooting
Your computer fails to start
File system returned as RAW
File and folder names containing unusual characters
Format disk prompt
Invalid media type error message

How To Fix Corrupted Hard Disk

Corrupted hard disk drive is usually characterized by data loss, which you should prevent at all costs. In some cases, you can recover both data and hard drives. Losing both in escalated situations is a possibility. The first thing you should do before thinking about fixing the errors is to recover your data.

The method you will use in data recovery depends on the quantity and value of the data. In many cases, the use of data recovery service providers returns positive results. Once done, you can use any of these methods to fix your hard disk drive:

Run An Antivirus Scan

For disk corruption caused by viruses or malware, you can be lucky to use just antivirus software to fix it. Upon successful scanning and repairing, you might access your files and start to use the hard disk again.

Run CHKDSK And SFC Scan

It should be a routine to run a CHKDSK scan with or without hard disk drive corruption. This process identifies bad sectors and fixes file system errors, thereby preventing data corruption. SFC scan fixes damaged or missing Windows system files that are likely to result in data storage drive corruption. However, these approaches can only fix minor errors and might escalate the problem if not executed properly.

Try Data Recovery Tools

Many data recovery tools exist in the market today. Your own challenge would be to identify the right software to use in restoring files from a badly damaged hard disk drive. Some of these tools are also useful in repairing the damaged disk.

Seek Help From Professionals

This should be your last option to recover your data and hard disk. IT experts from a data recovery company can tell you the possible cause of the problem and find solutions. It is only in severe cases that you will not recover anything with the professional services.

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