With the advancement of technology computer hard drives have become lot faster and quieter, with huge capacities of up to 8TB or even more. The downside of this advancement is its reliability. The hard drive may fail due to physical failure or logical failure.
The first thing to be done on hard drive failure case is to find out the nature of the failure, whether it’s a physical or logical failure. If you start your computer and by hitting F8 at the startup you can go to the safe mode, then it’s a logical failure in your hard drive. If you cannot perform this action then it’s a physical failure.
Logical failure of hard drive occurs due to software malfunction, virus attacks, sabotage or human error. You can easily recover data if your hard disk has crashed due to logical failure.
In the case of logical failure you can simply do a system restore or you can reinstall Windows and can have your things right at place. If you are unable to get through the safe mode then you can use data recovery software that can be loaded in a USB drive and the software will fix the problem. These software applications are available over internet and are self explanatory and easy to use.
Physical failure of hard drive occurs due to physical factors such as water, humidity, dust, temperature fluctuation, heat or mishandling. Physical failure can be characterized as crunching or clicking noise from your computer. Immediately shut down your PC if these things are noticed to avoid further damage to your hard drive.
If it’s a physical failure then it’s the worst scenario of data recovery. In this case you need to replace the logic board of the hard disk. The logic board for your hard disk can be found over internet or from any computer hardware shop. Replacing the logic board needs the knowledge where exactly the logic board rests on the hard drive. It also requires some mechanical work with the screwdrivers. If you are not sure about it then it would be better to hand over the job to a professional. After replacing the logic board you may recover your lost data.