It should still be possible to recover hard disk files even after mechanical damage, software issues or file deletion/formatting. In some cases, data recovery experts will be needed but there are still some manual PC repairs you can attempt. This article looks at these three blockers and ways to fix them.
Disk Failures
We’ll start with the worst-case scenario. Hard disk recovery is at its most difficult if your hard drive develops a mechanical fault. Components can come loose, bearings can seize up and read/write heads can become misaligned.
You can check that the IDE ribbon/power cable has not come loose. However, aside from this you are better advised to let a computer doctor or data recovery experts examine the disk to establish if a disk repair is possible and/or if they can recover hard disk files (which can be costly if the drive is damaged). Note though that hard drive failure recovery costs for mechanically damaged drives can cost hundreds of dollars to complete as specialist disk readers may be required.
Software Failures
If you are attempting to recover hard disk files when the drive is mechanically sound (i.e. Windows recognizes it when booting up), but the system will not start up properly for you then this is more likely a software or operating system fault.
Before you can start into any kind of hard disk recovery you will need to get the computer up and running. Your options are:
- Start in Safe-Mode. Hit F8 as the computer boots and Windows will run with a reduced number of running services (hopefully excluding the one that is causing a fault).
- Boot using the Last Known Good Configuration. This will roll back several system files to a previous healthy checkpoint. Some applications (updated/installed after the checkpoint) may become unusable and need to be re-installed.
- Boot using the Windows Emergency Boot disk. Run the Check Disk scan for sector faults.
- Our post on bad sector repair covers how to fix disk sector issues.
If this succeeds then at least you can now log in and back up your data (use a tool like Final Sync to schedule backups for you onto an external hard disk) and then troubleshoot the issue. For additional backup options, our post on how to choose the best backup solution differentiates between HDD/DVD/online options in more detail.
If this fails then you could try automating the repair process using PC maintenance software to repair registry corruption, operating system/DLL file damage and virus issues. There are several tools that can run as web services, like Reimage, that are capable of automating these types of repairs.
Reimage comes with a FREE scan so you can
use the scan report to help your own diagnosis.
Lost/Deleted/Formatted Data
Knowing how to recover data from hard disk partitions that have been formatted, or finding deleted files, is almost trivial to complete in comparison with the first two scenarios.
Deleted/formatted files are not wiped from a disk at the time of deletion. The data clusters (the disk’s representation of a file) will still remain, but be flagged to the operating system as free to reuse/overwrite with new data. The longer you leave it before trying to find deleted files, the greater the chance your files will have been overwritten.
If a disk sector becomes damaged (e.g. scratched/corrupted) then these tools are rarely able to read the bad sectors and the cost of a disk repair may prove too costly for all but the most precious of data.
Data recovery software like Remo Undelete and Restore My Files Data Recovery both work by scanning a drive of your choice and finding data clusters that represent your files. You simply review the found documents and recover hard disk files by copying them back to a folder (e.g. My Documents).
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