Physical Hard Drive Failure
From Free Knowledge Base- The DUCK Project: information for everyone
A Physical Hard Drive Failure can be one of two types, Mechanical or Electronic. The Logic board Controller can fail such as the spindle arm driver chip going bad or a bad cable. Moving parts in the drive can fail, the heads can crash on the platter causing physical scarring. The spindle bearing can seize up. The spindle motor can fail. Firmware can also become corrupted.
The three primary types of hard drive failure are explained: