Steps to recover data from failed hard drive.

how to recover data from dead hard drive?

Today in this post I am going to show how to recover data from dead hard drive in simple steps. If the components in the drive are still found to be functioning, you can recover data from failed hard drive yourself.

‘How to recover data from a dead hard drive’ is a query often searched over the Internet. This is mainly because hard disk drive failure is not an unusual occurrence. Though physical hard drive failure is a serious problem for computer users, it is not an uncommon issue. It may occur to anyone in the course of normal operation. Hence, there is no need to panic about data loss in case of hard drive failure of your computer as all hopes are not lost for recovering data from the dead hard drive. There is a fair chance of dead hard drive recovery in such a situation.

Nevertheless, one important point needs to be mentioned in this connection that such a dreadful situation like data loss can be avoided if you follow the basic rule of computing i.e. to back up important files and data at regular intervals. This will ensure that the latest version of your data is protected.

In the following paragraphs, I am going to show how to carry out dead hard drive recovery to recover files and data and restore them to your PC.

Earlier hard drive crashes on a computer used to mean severe damage to a hard drive when the read/write head inside the drive comes in contact with the spinning magnetic disc. However, modern drives are usually well protected against such physical jolts and hence this kind of failure is relatively rare than most other typical electro-mechanical faults.

Most of the hard drive problems are now seen to be software-related and the majority of them are due to a corrupt system file. But if the hard drive is mechanically or electronically damaged, you have no other option but to send it to a professional data recovery company to recover data from a failed hard drive.

Before I go to show how can you recover data from dead hard drive let us first see the types of hard drive failure that may occur in a computer.

Types of hard drive failure

Normally there are three types of failures of computer hard drives namely, Transient fault failure, Logical failure, and Mechanical failure.

Failure due to Transient fault 

Nowadays a dead hard drive loosely means almost any sort of hard drive failure, including due to some transient nature of faults. Recovering data from a failed hard drive due to some faults of a transient nature resulting in boot failure is not a difficult job. You can perform dead hard drive recovery yourself without any outside help, in case of failure due to transitory faults.

Logical failure

In a logical failure, the components of the hard drives are not physically damaged. Its electronic components and mechanical components all work properly. This failure occurs as a result of defective media or data corruption from another source. In these failures, the drive is unable to find or track the location of its data because of either a corrupt file system or accidental formatting.

However, unless the failed drive is overwritten, all files and data will remain on the drive which is apparently showing as dead. In almost all cases of logical failures, dead hard drive recovery is possible without the need to open the hard drive. In such a failure, you can use good data recovery software to recover data from failed hard drive yourself.

While there are several logical data recovery software programs on the market, it is important to know why your drive has experienced a logical failure before you attempt to recover files from a dead hard drive. If you misdiagnose a logical failure, you can cause irreparable damage to the drive in your recovery attempt.

Mechanical failure         

In a mechanical failure the components of the drive are physically damaged and the broken parts prevent it from working. In such failures, you may hear an indicative clicking sound as the drive makes futile attempts to access the files and data stored on it. Clicking sound in hard drives signals that a disk drive has failed. It arises from the unexpected movement of the hard drive’s read-write head causing an audible ‘click’.

Now let’s see what to do for dead hard drive recovery for recovering data from the failed hard drive.

Recover data from failed hard drive due to transient fault

For recovering data from dead hard drive first, you are to determine whether it is a case of a drive failure or one of those countless transient faults that can result in temporary boot failure. To determine this, you are to connect the drive to another computer.

To do this remove the failed hard drive from the sick computer and connect it to another machine as a secondary drive. The best way to do this is to use a USB to IDE/SATA adapter or USB universal drive adapter, which is a good device to keep for use for all sorts of hard drive diagnostics purposes. Make sure that the machine detects the drive in the BIOS or you won’t be able to access it once the computer starts up.

If your hard drive is healthy your apparently dead hard drive may show up on the secondary computer and display all the files on it. In such a case, in all probability, your hard drive is fine, but you need to reinstall your operating system. However, do not forget to copy the data in the folders that you would like to recover in the healthy computer hard drive, before reinstalling the OS.

On a Mac computer, the process is relatively simple. You can use a FireWire cable to connect your defective machine to another working Mac and then, “target boot” your non-working machine by holding down the ‘T” key while the power is made on.

In case your files and documents do not show up on the healthy computer then, in all probability, it is a case of drive failure in which case, for recovering data from failed hard drive, you are to try the steps as shown below.

Depending on the extent of damage to the drive, it can cost you anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars for damaged hard drive recovery. Besides, the recovery process can take a long time and there is no assurance that the money and time you spend in your attempt to recover data from a dead hard drive, will produce any result at all. Nevertheless, the good news is, in most cases, it is possible to recover data from hard drive successfully.

Steps to recover data from dead hard drive in case of logical failure

Here are the steps to be followed to recover data from failed hard drive in case of logical failure by taking the help of a dead hard drive recovery software:

1. Remove the failed drive from the computer;

2. Use a USB universal drive adapter to hook up the dead drive to a secondary computer for diagnosis;

3. Download and run a free demo diagnostic tool to ensure what might be recoverable. There are many free demos available on the internet that will scan your drive and give you a fairly good idea of what’s salvageable;

4. Once the analytical outcome indicates good results use any good data recovery software to recover data from your crashed drive. There are several good data recovery software, both paid and free, available in the market. My top picks for paid versions are Disk Drill Data Recovery, Minitool Power Data Recovery, and EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard (free for recovering data up to 500MB). Among free software, my best picks are Recuva, PhotoRec, Undelete 360, and Data Rescue. All these programs work mostly in a similar way to recover data from failed hard drive;

5. After downloading and installing the paid or free data recovery software select the failed drive as your source and choose a target folder that will receive the data. (Make sure that the recovery disk has enough space to accommodate all files and data of your failed drive). It may take quite a long time to complete the recovery process and be prepared for this;

6. The most important point is that do not download, install, or extract the data recovery software on the failed drive that you want to recover. This would overwrite the files that you want to retrieve;

How to recover data from dead hard drive in case of Mechanical failure

If it is a case of mechanical failure you can hear a telltale clicking sound indicating the drive’s futile attempt to access the files and data stored on it. Some tools can be used to recover data from damaged hard drive that has become inaccessible due to drive failure. For these tools to be useful, your drive needs to be mechanically operational. So the first thing to check, is whether your hard drive is rotating properly.

However, in such cases, you can’t recover data from damaged hard drive without taking the help of a data-recovery specialist providing dead hard drive recovery services.

Some of the good companies in the field providing expert services for data recovery from a damaged hard drive at a charge are CBL Data Recovery, SalvageData Recovery LLC, Tenorshare 4DDiG Data Recovery, PITS Global Data Recovery Services, Stellar Data Recovery, Ontrack and Gillware. The cost of recovering data from a failed hard drive depends on the severity of the drive failure.

You may also like to read: Recover Overwritten Files – an easy step by step guide

Frequently asked questions

Now that I have shown the simple steps to recover data from dead hard drive before I conclude, let me also address some of the questions often asked by people relating to dead hard drive data recovery

How to recover data from a dead hard drive?

You can recover data from dead hard drive by using a skilled data recovery service. Failed hard drives cannot be recovered with recovery software since the operating system cannot access the device to allow the software to recover the data.

Can I connect the old hard drive to the new PC?

To connect an old hard drive to a new PC, you can use a USB hard drive adapter connecting to the hard drive on one end and to a USB in the new computer on the other end. If the new computer is a desktop, you can also connect the old drive as a secondary internal drive.

How do I transfer files from the old hard drive to the new computer?

Whether you have a desktop or laptop computer, to transfer files from an old hard drive to a new Windows 10 computer you can use an External Adapter, which connects to the hard drive on one end and to a USB in the new computer on the other end.

How do I download files from a broken hard drive to my computer?

To download files from a broken hard drive to your computer you can use a USB hard drive adapter, which is a cable-like device, by connecting to the hard drive on one end and to a USB in the new computer on the other end.

To do this, first, take the old drive out of the broken PC and then connect it to the new computer using the USB hard drive adapter. If the new computer is a desktop, you can also connect the old drive as a secondary internal drive.

Once the old drive is connected to the new computer, you should be able to view the files on the old drive.

You may also like to read: How to recover data from formatted hard drive

Conclusion

The discussion above on how to recover data from a dead hard drive will remain incomplete unless I also mention the shape in which you are going to get your files and data back after dead hard drive recovery.

Do not expect to recover data from dead hard drive back in the exact condition you originally stored them on the disk.

All the hard disk data recovery programs are designed basically to do a data dump from your failed drive to a new disk. After you recover data from failed hard drive you will get your recovered files arranged in separate folders by types like Word documents, JPEG images, MPEG movies, etc., and the songs and photos will be randomly mixed with sound and image files in the computer’s system folder. Moreover, the names of the files will be changed to various sequences consisting of both letters and numbers. So, after you recover files from dead hard drive, you may have to carry out the long tedious job of renaming your recovered files.