SIGNS OF HARD

DISK FAILURE

  

Every day, I live in fear of a sudden, catastrophic hard drive failure. How can I tell if my hard drive is failing?

   Ah, by the tenor of your query, I can tell that you have not backed up your data recently. If you want to quell those fears once and for all, set up an automatic, incremental backup system that will let you roll back to a previous snapshot of your data if and when your hard disk fails.
   
But I know that’s not the question you asked.
 
Knowing when a hard disk drive is about to bite the dust is a useful skill, since it lets you anticipate and mitigate the possibility of data loss. While not all hard disks give fair warning before they fail, here are a few signs that your hard drive is about to kick the bucket: 

 

Clicking, whirring, beeping, knocking, sweeping, and clunking sounds

The surest sign of an impending mechanical hard disk failure are abnormal sounds from the drive. The notorious “click of death” is the most recognizable, but there are a whole host of other troublesome noises as well. It suffices to say that just about any sound is a bad sign, but if you want to get more specific, I recommend checking out this page called “Hard Drive Sounds”. This has a bunch of mp3 recordings of the sounds that various hard disk drives make when they are failing. They are organized by manufacturer, including Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. Take a listen.
 
 
 

Slowed performance and intermittent freezing

While there are many reasons why a computer may start to slow down (bloatware, viruses, too many programs open), a failing hard disk drive is one that many don’t consider. If your computer seems to be a little slow on the uptake (lags when browsing folders or opening relatively small files), it may be because certain areas of the disk are gradually failing, and thus take multiple read attempts in order to access the data. To test this, try doing a fresh install of your operating system or booting into Safe Mode. If things are still moving slow, you should consider transferring to another hard disk drive.
 
 

Increased number of bad sectors

All hard disk drives will get bad sectors. But if the bad sectors start spreading like a cancer, then it’s a sign that something is up. Run Scandisk occasionally to check the number of bad sectors. If you see a spike in bad sectors, then it’s time to replace your hard disk drive.
 
 
 

Sudden reboots and unexplainable read/write errors

 If your computer suddenly locks up or crashes, or if you get random file access errors, then it’s possible that your hard drive is the culprit. Take note of what’s going on when these random crashes happen. Is it when there is heavy read/write activity? Does it happen no matter what application you are using? If you can rule out buggy software or a virus, then your hard drive is probably to blame.
 
 
 

These are the most telling signs that your hard disk drive is having trouble.
 
These, I believe, are better indicators than the “Mean Time Between Failures” that are advertised by the manufacturers, since those tests are usually done in controlled environments with more methodical parameters. In reality, hard drives are subjected to far more unpredictable abuse.

If you notice any of the above signs of failure and you don’t have backup, I wouldn’t recommend trying to copy your files over using the normal methods, such as booting into the operating system and offloading the data onto a mass storage device. Instead, I would image the entire disk, do a fresh install on a brand new hard drive and then migrate your files and settings over from the image. This will prevent any further damage and data loss. If your drive is so far gone it won’t even boot or mount, you should do a disk image and run data recovery on the image.
 
Good luck!
 
Your Disk Recovery Advisor
 
 
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