Tips for Failed Hard Drive Data Recovery

One thing that manufacturers of hard drives do not tell us when we buy our brand new computers, is that hard drives are subject to fail, regardless of the amount of time they are used. With some systems it may take more than 10 years before the hard drive failure occurs, while others can fail within just a year of normal use. Because of this, failed hard drive data recovery is an important issue that needs some thought.

Basically, there are two main types of hard drive failure. The first is those hard drives that fail due to a software problem, and the second failed hard drive category applies in the case of a physical malfunction with the hard drive.

Referring to the first category, the failed hard drive data recovery is usually considered when the data on the drive gets corrupted due to something like a corrupted partition table, damaged boot record, or missing root directory information. A lot of experts feel that the hard drive failure due to software is generally easier to recover with the use of easily available failed hard drive data recovery software.

It involves a much more complicated process when you need to recover data from a failed hard drive that has physically malfunctioned. This is because when the failed hard drive has been physically damaged in some way, then any additional access to the hard drive may cause further corruption to the data stored on the drive. It is harder for the failed hard drive data recovery process to obtain the key files and stored information back from the hard drive. Most of the failed hard drive data recovery services that you will see advertised are offered for this category of failed hard drive data recovery.

If you are unlucky enough to need a failed hard drive data recovery, bear in mind that a greater level of caution is needed so that your data recovery is successful. When you are considering using any of the failed hard drive data recovery software you need to be aware that there will be a risk of further data loss as the software gets to work on the hard drive. One of the best ways to avoid an additional damage is to create an image of the drive using an imaging tool.

If as an example, your failed hard drive happens to be the drive which contains the operating system, the best failed hard drive data recovery step you can take is not to boot the drive at all if this is possible. According to the experts this is reasonably simple for a desktop system - all you need to do is to disconnect the boot drive and replace it with a new drive. For this to be totally successful you need to ensure that you have a drive with a large enough capacity to hold the image of the current drive.

You will then be able to install an operating system on the new drive. This basic failed hard drive data recovery step is accomplished by just reconnecting the old drive as a slave unit or by placing it in an external case and then connecting to it through USB or FireWire. However, for your failed hard drive data recovery to work best, it is important to disconnect the current boot partition, because trying to install the Operating System on the new drive will just result in temporary files being written to the old drive.

For more articles by Charles Cass on Hard Drive Failure