The average lifetime of a stationary hard drive is around five to ten years. Less if the drive is exposed to changing temperatures, humidity, or external shocks. Realistically, your laptop hard drive becomes prone to failure after three to five years, and this is true for SSDs, too. Getting nervous, yet?
How to Tell If Your Hard Drive Is Failing: 3 Signs
In the best of cases, hard drives fail gradually, leaving you enough time to grab a copy of your data and replace them before facing a fatal failure.
But how exactly can you tell if your hard drive is failing? Well, it’s a good thing you’re here!
1. Slowing Computer, Frequent Freezes, Blue Screen Of Death
This trifecta of a PC breakdown can have a million different causes, and a failing hard drive is one of them. If these problems occur after a fresh installation or in Windows Safe Mode, the root of the evil is almost certainly bad hardware, possibly a failing hard drive.
To exclude an issue with your hard drive, you can run a host of diagnostic tools, but you should start by looking into your system’s S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data. Note that while Windows is automatically collecting this information in the background, it’s notoriously unreliable in predicting hard drive failure, and you may experience a critical malfunction before a S.M.A.R.T. warning kicks in.
To manually check your drive’s S.M.A.R.T. status, you’ll need a third-party tool like CrystalDiskInfo. Under Disk, select the disk to scan and note your disk’s health status.
If you can exclude hardware issues after running further diagnostic tools, you should proceed to resetting or reinstalling your operating system. Windows 10 has an option to keep all your files, but, just in case, you should prepare a backup anyway. Scroll down for more information on backups.
2. Corrupted Data and Accumulating Bad Sectors
Corrupted data can show up in countless different ways. If you repeatedly see one of these symptoms, chances are your hard drive is gradually failing:
- Scrambled file or folder names
- Random error messages when opening, moving, or saving files
- Files that fail to open
- Corrupted data within your files
- Disappearing files or folders
Data corruption happens at the point of data creation or storage. It could be that a virus is interfering with your files, but it could also just be bad sectors on your hard drive.
Bad sectors are areas of the hard drive that don’t maintain data integrity. Windows automatically masks bad sectors, so you won’t notice them unless you run into issues with corrupted data. On a failing hard drive, bad sectors can accumulate rapidly, meaning you’ll see these issues more often.
A Windows command tool called CHKDSK can help you recover data from bad sectors and exclude them from future use. For a quick scan, press Windows + E to open File Explorer, navigate to This PC, right-click the failing disk or partition, and select Properties.
Within Properties, switch to the Tools tab and click Check. If Windows notes that “You don’t need to scan this drive,” you can click Scan drive to run the tool anyway. Once it’s done, you can choose to fix any errors it found.
A more thorough CHKDSK scan can take a long time and requires a reboot. When you can spare your computer for a night and a day, open an Administrator command prompt, i.e., right-click Start and select Command Prompt (Admin), then run the following command to recover data and fix errors: chkdsk /r c: (for your C: drive). Enter Y when queried, and CHKDSK will run once you restart your computer.
3. Strange Sounds
When you hear strange noises coming from your hard drive, you’re in trouble. A repetitive sound known as the click of death is caused by the head trying to write data, failing, returning to its home position, and retrying over and over again. Grinding or screeching noises indicate that parts of the hardware, such as the bearings or spindle motor, are failing.
At this point, you’re lucky if you can recover data from your hard drive.
I Think My Hard Drive Is Failing. What Shall I Do?
So you suspect that a hard drive failure is just around the corner? The truth is, it probably is. And here’s what you can do.
Step 1: Back up Your Data
The best thing you can do is always keep backups of your data on a second drive and be ready to get a replacement.
It’s unlikely for two drives to fail at the same time. An exception would be natural disasters like floods or fires. For these cases, we recommend keeping a copy of your most important data in a different physical location, for example, at work or with a family member or a friend.
You could also use an online backup solution like OneDrive or Google Drive. If you’re using Microsoft Office, consider upgrading to a Microsoft 365 subscription, which gives you the latest version of Office and 1TB of OneDrive storage.
Step 2: Replace the Drive
When you’re ready to replace your SSD or HDD, refer to our guide on how to pick the right drive and install it.
Step 3: Safely Dispose of Your Old Drive
Before you throw out your old drive, remember to wipe the drive to prevent a third party from recovering your data.
Whatever you do, please don’t toss your failed drive in the trash. Electronics contain precious metals and toxic components that don’t belong in a landfill. Bring your hardware to a local electronic recycling center, ask your electronic store whether they take it back, or use a program like Western Digital’s free electronic recycling program, which will give you 15% off on your next purchase.
Don’t Let Your Hard Drive Fail!
Do not rely on signs or software to tell you whether you have a failing hard drive. It is more likely than not that it will fail unexpectedly and without any warning signs whatsoever. Rather than trying to forecast something that is even less predictable than the weather, you should rely on backups.
If it’s too late, here’s how to diagnose and fix a dead hard drive to recover data. And if things remain a lost cause, you still may be able to get some use out of that dead hard drive.
Image credits: Anyka/Shutterstock
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