How Can You Recover Data After Hard Drive Crash, Look Here

During computer using, the hard drive is consciously or unconsciously damaged and this will usually result in hard drive crash/hard drive failure and data loss. Therefore, how to recover data after hard drive crash becomes a matter of importance.

We found many people are discussing this issue in the major forums: how to get files off a hard drive that won't boot. If you are one of those victims who really want to restore your hard drive, we're sure what we will say in the following content is going to help you a lot.

What are you expected to do when a hard drive is crashed before you have any chance to transfer your data? Please follow the steps given below to recover from hard drive failure as quickly as you can.

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Firstly, you need to understand that hard drive crash is not as horrible as you thought it would be. On the contrary, if you follow the solutions we'll introduce below, you're able to finish hard drive crash recovery easily and independently.

Secondly, you should download MiniTool Power Data Recovery now, no matter you're stuck in data loss problem currently or not. This free program has proven to help a large number of people regain missing files. The best part? It doesn't require much computer knowledge and you only need to complete 3 simple steps to complete the crash disk file recovery task.

Take Actions Quickly to Recover Data after Hard Drive Crash

As we said before, hard drive crash is not so devastating. We provide 3 choices for you to recover data from a crashed hard drive.

Choices for Crashed Hard Drive Data Recovery

The first choice you can rely on when encountering a broken hard drive is checking Windows Recycle Bin. Sometimes, the files are not really missing; they're just moved to Recycle Bin due to careless operations, virus attack, etc.

The second choice is to turn to the backups you've made before the crash occurred. Find them directly to recover data from dead hard drive/crashed hard drive.

But if those two choices don't work for you, you need to try the third one.

The third choice is using MiniTool Power Data Recovery. It is regarded as one of the best recovery tools by numerous users. Its "Damaged Partition Recovery" function is very good for damaged hard drive recovery.

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This software owns the following merits:

  • Powerful functions
  • High effectiveness
  • Virus-free
  • Small size
  • Excellent compatibility (supporting different file systems like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS, and almost all common storage devices & Windows operating systems).

The Perfect Choice for You

Preparations: try the free edition – download and install it to a safe place (you should not choose the damaged drive for software installation).

Physical hard drive recovery steps:
1. You are supposed to choose an appropriate functional module from the software main interface. (Annotation of each module would emerge when you put the mouse pointer on them)

In general, you need to select "Damaged Partition Recovery" to recover files from hard drive after a sudden crash (the hard disk failure will not delete existing partitions under normal circumstances).

Attention
If the hard drive is dead, unfortunately, please read this post to know how to recover data from a dead hard drive.

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Basic functions of those five modules:

  • "Undelete Recovery": recover permanently deleted files & folders after a quick scan.
  • "Lost Partition Recovery": recover data from missing partition (deleted or lost somehow).
  • "Damaged Partition Recovery": recover data from RAW, formatted or attacked partition.
  • "Digital Media Recovery": recover multimedia files from a flash drive and memory stick.
  • "CD/DVD Recovery": recover lost files & folders from CD/DVD discs.

2. Select the crashed drive which contains the lost files and click "Full Scan" to continue.

In the lower right corner, there are actually three buttons available:

  • "Back": help you go back to the main interface and choose another module.
  • "Open": use it to open some partitions which can't be identified by Windows.
  • "Full Scan": perform a full scan to the partition even if it can't be accessed at all.
Attention:
If you want to recover data from external hard drive, but it doesn't appear in this interface, you should read External Hard Drive Doesn't Appear – How To Fix & Recover Data. Obviously, it tells you how to recover data from hard disk which is not detecting and how to recover data from the not recognized external hard drive.

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3. Then, you will see a file list with both lost data and existing data. Now, please check files you want to recover and click "Save" -> choose the destination -> click "OK", and then the entire process to recover data from damaged hard drive is finished.

Note: you're only allowed to recover 1GB data with the free edition of MiniTool Power Data Recovery. If you want to recover more, you need to upgrade it to an advanced edition.

Attention:
If the internal hard disk is crashed and the computer can't boot, you should resort to the bootable edition and click here to know how to recover data from crashed internal hard disk.

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What Is Hard Drive Crash Exactly

Hard drive crash, namely hard drive damage, is caused by mainly two types of reasons: logical damage and physical damage. The former belongs to soft failure while the latter is hardware failure, which could hardly be fixed.

Logical Damage & Physical Damage

  • In general, logical damage includes partition table lost/damage, MBR damage, tracking servo information error, system information error and section logical error. This kind of damage is usually easy to be recovered by just adopting a professional and dedicated program.

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  • However, physical damage refers to the damage of each component of a hard drive. The damaged part must be replaced with a new one in order to get hard drive work normally again. Scratches on a platter, head wear, circuit board's short circuit and chip burning are all included in this type of hard drive failure.
Note: though you can buy a new hard drive to get rid of the physical damage easily, the important data saved in the original damaged drive may be lost forever. That's why we should be as careful as we can when using a computer and a hard drive.

Common Hard Drive Crash Cases

Case 1: RAW Hard Drive Problem
Are you familiar with this scenario: hard drive becomes RAW somehow when you try to use it? This is actually a typical kind of hard drive crash that bothers lots of users. According to research, the cause of this problem is very complex; no one can name the exact reasons for sure. But we only need to know that the state of the RAW hard drive is a little bit like the hard drive which hasn't been initialized yet.

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Perhaps the only problem lies in how to recover data from hard drive without formatting. How to bring it back to normal state and use for further data storage? Please choose the "Damaged Partition Recovery" module we've introduced just now.

Case 2: Formatted Hard Drive Accidentally
Accidental disk formatting is also another major factor that could lead to serious data loss. Once the formatting is done, nothing left in the target drive. And it is unlike deletion situation, in which users can try to check the Recycle Bin to find deleted data. Nevertheless, users don't need to worry too much if they want to recover data from the hard drive after formatting.

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That is because data will not be really removed out from the drive to which formatting has been performed. On the contrary, they still stay at the same place where they were located before getting overwriting (they remain recoverable unless new data are written in and take the place of them). But before that happens, you have a lot of time to successfully recover data after hard drive crash with a wonderful program.

Case 3: Partition Lost from Hard Drive
Recover data after hard drive crash 7 In addition to partition formatting, partition loss is also a horrible accident. It's a nightmare for users who stored significant personal data & business documents on the lost drive. Causes for this problem can be generally divided into two types: human error and unexpected hardware/soft failure.

Human error means that users deleted partitions or necessary files for partition displaying carelessly while using a computer. Hardware failure basically refers to the physical damage of hard drive while soft failure includes system crash, virus attack, software conflict, and so on.

Users also needn't worry too much when they're in face of partition loss caused by soft failures since the "Lost Partition Recovery" module included in MiniTool Power Data Recovery is designed exactly for you to restore data from lost partition.

In all above cases, Recycle Bin is not helpful at all. At this time, you have no choice but to turn to previous backups (if you have) or resort to the free edition/advanced edition of MiniTool Power Data Recovery we've asked you to download in the beginning of this post.

Watch out the Following 6 Signs That Indicates Bad Sector/Track

For users' information, there are 6 signs that may indicate a bad sector/track. Please pay enough attention to those signs so as to rescue your significant data timely from the hard drive before it finally becomes dead.

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1. Weird sound: A weird sound/noise is coming from the computer when it is started normally.

2. Boot failure: Data Error Reading Drive D:, General Failure Reading Drive C: or Sector Not Found error message appears and leads to boot failure, while virus infection is excluded.

3. CHKDSK runs at startup: if the ScanDisk runs automatically to detect disk error each time when the system is booted successfully, there may be some bad sectors/tracks.

4. Get stuck to a certain point: when performing FDISK to hard disk, you find it was stuck at a certain point, going forward and backward repeatedly.

5. Fail to format a drive: when you plan to format a partition on the hard drive, the process is stuck in certain stage and error finally occurs, making you end up in failure.

6. Hard drive read error: it appears constantly when a file is reading or a program is running, suggesting file corruption and other information. Besides, if the disk reading process takes too long or the blue screen appears during reading, it also suggests that there's bad sector/track on the hard drive.

Here's the conclusion: when any one of those signs shows up, please take actions immediately to rescue your data from the internal hard drive or external hard drive so as to avoid permanent data loss.

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Bottom Line

Hard drive crash is unavoidable; we have to admit this fact. But what you need to understand well after reading this post is: hard disk failure is not so devastating. Your data may get lost during the crash, or even worse, your entire hard drive becomes RAW and you lose access to all data in it; but please do not get anxious too early.

No matter which case you're confronted with, we can help; we provide useful methods for you to recover data after hard drive crash. You just need to follow the steps we have illustrated above in order to recover files from failed hard drive so easily and conveniently.

Besides, you should pay enough attention to the hard drive crash cases we have mentioned and the signs that may indicate a bad sector/track. In this way, you're able to do the right thing and avoid hard drive failure to a certain extent.



Common problems related to partition recovery and our solutions: