Hard Drive of your is just a hardware that can fail. In the case of mechanical hard drives, there are many moving parts in it. These parts can eventually stop working. On the other hand, solid-state drives do not have any moving parts, but they can fail too. Every drive in the world has a limited lifespan.
That is why you need to have a backup of your important files. There are software’s, that can help predict the lifespan of a drive. But such software cannot predict the exact lifespan of the drive. Anyhow, there are ways to find whether your drive is failing or not.
Ways to Find Out If your Drive is Failing
Well, there are many ways in which you can predict whether your drive is failing or not. Your computer cannot tell you whether your drive is bad or not. Unless it stops booting the operating system or unable to detect the drive. If you do not have back up and your drive fails, you will need a data recovery service.
The first way is to check whether your drive is making any kind of noise. Moreover, if your computer freezes eventually and you hear sound from the drive. Then it means there is something wrong with your mechanical drive. Any kind of noise from the drive is a sign that it is failing.
You can do a SMART check to see if there is any problem with the bad sectors in the drive. SMART is a built-in technology in the drive to identify errors. But it is also not perfect because sometimes SMART may report an okay status. It will not give you any warning even the hard drive is failing.
There are many third-party tools available that can help check the SMART status. If it is showing errors, then you need to back up your data and replace it before it fails. If you are unable to boot into your operating system, then you can also check the status in the computer’s firmware settings screen.
How to Confirm?
Sometimes, the problem is not with the drive itself. That is why, It is important for you to troubleshoot before replacing the drive. If your computer is not detecting the drive, then it does not mean the drive has failed.
There is a chance that the cable that connects your drive to the motherboard or power supply is not properly attached. So, unplug and then plug them back to ensure that everything is ok.
If your computer bios is showing the hard drive but you are unable to boot. Then your hard drive has failed and you need to replace it. Sometimes, a badly failed drive cannot be detected by the computer.
Malware can also cause your system to freeze and data corruption. So, run an antivirus program and scan your computer. If you reinstall the window on your computer and everything starts to work fine then it was a software issue.
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