Difference between revisions of "Hard Drive Failure"

Revision as of 19:38, 16 September 2014

A common problem with a computer system is hard drive / hard disk failure. Since the Personal Computer platform was introduced with internal hard drives, users have been encouraged to create backups of important data. A hard drive is a form of non volatile storage, however, any hard disk drive will inevitably failure. Failure may occur over time in the form of increasing bad sectors, or failure may be catastrophic and sudden.

The hard drive in your personal computer is a mechanical device, with precision moving parts guided by electronics. Data is stored on rotating disks with magnetic surfaces called platters. As the platters rotate rapidly, the read-write heads of the hard drive are used to write and read the information stored on the surface of one or more disk platters. These drives operate at amazing speed which produces plenty of stress on the parts. Through normal use the stress will eventually result in failure.

Hard Drive Failure can be categorized by three types.

1. Logical Hard Drive Failure
2. Mechanical Hard Drive Failure
3. Electronic Hard Drive Failure