Recover Data from Hard Drives: Causes and Solutions

The amount of data stored on personal hard drives and corporate servers continues to grow. And so is the risk of data loss. Not everyone is very conscious about this risk and keeps a regular backup of their important files. What if our hard drives failed and we have no backups to fall back on? Can we recover data from failed hard drives? Mostly yes but it still depends on the cause of the data loss.

We can divide the data-loss situation into two categories: logical data loss and physical data loss. Logical data loss means data is inaccessible due to deletion, partition corruption, partition deletion, format, reinstall, virus etc.  In short, the storage media is in fine working condition but the file system is damaged or the data housed by the file system is latent or corrupt. Physical or mechanical data loss means the data is no longer accessible because the storage media is no longer operational. Hard drives may not be operational due to damage to the Printed Circuit Board, read/write head failure or platter damage. No matter what caused the data loss, we should immediately stop using the hard drive to avoid secondary damage to the data. This is important because it can affect how successful the data recovery will be.

Main Reasons for Data Loss

1. Human error. It is revealed in a Deepspar paper that human error is accountable for at least 12% of the causes of data loss. This may include accidental deletion, partitioning, formatting or overwriting without backups etc.

2. Hardware failure. Hard disk drives are fragile mechanical devices. There are many moving parts running at such a high speed that any sudden impact or movement can lead to potential disaster. Aside from that, there are also chances you just have a hard disk with manufacturing defects.

3. Virus infection or malware. Data loss could be a side effect or main purpose of a virus infection. The battle between virus and anti-virus are constantly evolving. It is safer to make regular backups than wishing the wall holds up against the ravages.

4. Power failure. Power failure has two adversary effects. One is that the data in volatile memory not being saved to permanent memories. For example, you were writing a paper and the power went off before you could save your file. Another is the sudden power outage damaging hard disk. Cutting off power while the hard disk is working can result in bad sectors or damaged partition table, rendering the data inaccessible.

Is it possible to recover data from failing hard disks?

Most instances of hard drive failure do not destroy all of the data on the disk and much of the data on failed drives is often recoverable.

The logical data loss can be easily recovered by using a data recovery software. 
Physical data loss is permanent and irrecoverable. Depending on the size and type of damaged area, professional data recovery companies can manage to salvage some data from a physically damaged disk, using professional tools and software. Both consumer applications and professional data recovery services are available to recover lost data. Which alternative to choose depends upon the value of the lost data.