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A hard drive may be inaccessable due to physical/mechanical failure, which is different from logical errors on the disk. This article relates to a drive that is physically or mechanically failing. You have a last chance to recover data before the drive fails completely, making the data inaccessible without actually opening the drive.Data on a [[hard drive]] may be inaccessible due to physical/mechanical failure, which is different from logical errors on the disk. This article relates to a drive that is physically or mechanically failing. You have a last chance to recover data before the drive fails completely, making the data inaccessible without actually opening the drive.Logical disk errors describe problems reading data from a drive that is mechanically fully functional. Data recovery software addresses ways to retrieve data from drives with logical errors. NEARLY ALL DATA RECOVERY SOFTWARE is for drives with logical errors, not physical or mechanical errors and such software typically inappropriate from data recovery from physically damaged drives. In some cases, use of data recovery software may result in you losing data you could have retrieved by other means.Logical Failure versus Physical Failure [[Logical Hard Drive Failure]] can occur making it difficult to access your data. Logical disk errors describe problems reading data from a drive that is mechanically fully functional. Data recovery software addresses ways to retrieve data from drives with logical errors. NEARLY ALL DATA RECOVERY SOFTWARE is for drives with logical errors, not physical or mechanical errors and such software typically inappropriate from data recovery from physically damaged drives. In some cases, use of data recovery software may result in you losing data you could have retrieved by other means.Causes of Drive FailureCauses of Physical Drive Failure == Head Crash ==The computer was banged or suffered impact while the hard drive was in read/write active (the heads were not parked). A head crash can damage both to the read heads and the surface of the platter. It is rare that there is surface only damage. Even if the damage is surface only, and those bad blocks can be marked by the operating system so the drive can continue in use, the data should be recovered and the drive replaced immediately. Such a drive will inevitably fail. The read write heads can also become misaligned as the result of a physical impact. === Freeze the Hard Drive ===# Remove the hard drive from the computer.# Place the hard drive inside of a good quality zip top freezer bag.# Place the wrapped hard drive inside of ANOTHER zip top freezer bag.# Place the double wrapped hard drive in the coldest part of your freezer.# Leave the hard drive in the freezer for 12 hours at least.# Once very chilled, install the hard drive in your computer and start pulling off data. Begin with the most valuable data.# At some point, the hard drive will fail again. When it does, mark the last successfully copied data, pull out the hard drive, double wrap it again and stick it in the Chill Chest for another 12 hours.# You may need to do this a number of times to get all the data you want, or until the hard drive stops working completely.This procedure ref: [http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux source]Review: I believe the risk here is the cold hard drive placed back in the computer will start to collect moisture, in the form of condensation, that could cause water to drip inside of your computer!Theory: Perhaps it would be best to place the harddrive in a freezer inside a USB enclosure, and after 12 hours connect to your PC via the cable extending from inside the freezer, through the door seal, and outside to your PC. the bag will have a breach in the seal where the cable protrudes so this will have to be sealed with silicone. Try recovering data while the drive remains in the freezer via the USB interface. Counter Point: Hydro dynamic bearings can't be un-frozen when they blow their seals. This only worked on older ball bearing drives. A hard drive may also fail when the ferrous media layer flakes off the glass platter. Freezing a drive with this problem will not work.== Related ==* [[Disk Data Recovery]]* [[Data Recovery From a Failing Hard Drive]]* [[CD/DVD Scratch Repair]]* [[Linux Mount Hibernated Windows Partitions]]