Do-it-yourself hdd repair after a fall

In detail: repairing hdd after a fall with your own hands from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

Hard disk repair (or HDD - Hard Disk Drive) - the procedure for bringing the HDD to a working state, in which it is possible to read the necessary data from it, including service information, file table, user data, multimedia information, etc., even if the BIOS does not see the hard disk. In this article, you will learn how to fix a hard drive, if possible, and what to do if hdd is not detected in the BIOS or an error appears when trying to load the operating system.

It is necessary to distinguish between recovering deleted files from repairing a hard disk. The fact is that HDD repair does not provide for the return of data to the storage device, while data recovery is not always possible due to a hard drive breakdown or partial or complete damage to the disk surface.

So, let's list the reasons why a hard drive may need recovery and how to repair a hard drive: on your own, with your own hands, or it is better and more reliable to resort to the help of qualified specialists familiar with the hard drive device.

The disk starts to make strange sounds (for example, loud enough rustling of heads, squeaks, clicks), the operating system slows down, there are “brakes” and “freezes” on the hard disk, files, folders, and whole partitions may suddenly disappear. You can open the disc - and there is a void, unmarked space.

The fact is that from time to time you need to check the hard disk for bad sectors, bad blocks, perform defragmentation, diagnostics, observe normal operation at the optimum temperature, and do not apply physical pressure to the disk. Therefore, violation of these general rules of good form, as a rule, leads to disastrous consequences like damaged sectors.

Video (click to play).

Various recovery techniques are used to recover hard drives with these read errors. All procedures are carried out under laboratory conditions using expensive equipment that allows you to read sectors many times, ignoring errors. Thus, the owner of the hard drive has no choice but to seek the services of specialists who may have access to the appropriate equipment for resuscitation procedures in relation to the HDD.

The situation with hard disk recovery becomes more complicated if the file table or partition table or other service information has been damaged. In such cases, it is necessary to make a "clone" of the HDD onto a "donor" - a working hard drive, to which files are then transferred from the failed hard drive.

However, you can fix some hard disk read errors yourself. These include bad sectors, bad blocks. If you think you have enough experience and straight hands, we can recommend two great programs for diagnosing a hard drive and fixing bad sectors.

Clicks during HDD operation are another characteristic symptom when the hard disk does not start and, accordingly, is not detected by the system. This is usually due to wear or damage to the hard drive heads. Like any other mechanical failure of a HDD, you cannot fix it with your own hands.

However, if you hear clicks on a working hard disk (that is, it reads and writes files normally), then you need to urgently take certain measures and play it safe.Be sure to back up your valuable information to another hard drive, USB flash drive or cloud hosting, since nowadays this is not an expensive procedure at all. Indeed, at one moment it may happen that the hard disk will not start or stop being detected - and if you made a backup, then the loss of information will not cause a shock.

What if the BIOS does not see the hard drive? An HDD on which such errors have occurred has characteristic symptoms: it is not detected in the BIOS, and it can also produce strange noise (clicks, taps). In some cases, the hard disk is available in the BIOS, but is not able to load the operating system.

Accordingly, to restore the ROM and service data on the HDD, the above-mentioned components of the hard disk will need to work correctly. This type of repair is carried out by specialists using special equipment. It is impossible to make it with your own hands. At the same time, the physical structure of the hard disk surface is read correctly, so the data physically remains intact.

If your computer does not see the hard drive (Sata or IDE interfaces), it is not necessarily caused by a disk failure. The easiest way to solve the problem yourself:

  1. Remove the hard drive from the system unit
  2. Clean the hard drive from dust
  3. Replace the drive by checking the SATA / IDE cables and power cable from the motherboard and power supply to the hard drive for damage, whether it fits snugly into the device slot.

Sometimes the hard drive is not detected in the bios for the most commonplace reason: the cable accidentally moved away from the storage device, which is why the HDD does not start and, of course, does not work.

A characteristic symptom of this type of breakdown is knocking inside the HDD. The second feature is that the device may not be read by BIOS. To solve this problem, a complete replacement of the controller and, in some cases, flashing and replacement of the hard disk electronics will be required. Otherwise, the data on the device can be read as if nothing had happened. Is it possible to repair a hard drive yourself in case of such a breakdown? The answer is rather negative. First, most computer firms do not specialize in fixing components. Secondly, such an HDD repair will cost several hundred dollars. However, if the information on the disk is of particular value, you can start looking for a computer lab for recovery.

As with any HDD breakdown, the disk begins to emit knocks and clicks. The device is usually not detected through the BIOS. Winchester can suddenly stop, "start" unsuccessfully. To solve the breakdown and successfully restore the disk, you will need to completely disassemble the faulty block and replace its filling, which includes heads, cylinders, disks and other elements. Thus, in this situation, repairs are inevitable.

Hello! After upgrading from the 7th to the 10th version of Windows, the external drive was no longer detected on the laptop and on all other devices, including a computer with the seventh version of Windows. Why is the hard drive not detected? What could be the problem and how to fix it?

Answer... The HDD may well not be detected because during an update or a clean installation of the OS, you could delete the partition using the Windows Setup Wizard. In any case, the disk partition could not just take and disappear. You can check with the Windows utility - Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) or any partition manager like Partition Magic. If you need to recover a deleted partition, use the free TestDisk utility.

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Are the recovery methods for an external hard drive different from the internal one?

Answer... Definitely not. The filling of the devices is identical, the only difference is in the form-factor of information storage - that is, roughly speaking, in the box in which the filling of the disk is packed. An external drive is more prone to physical damage and other risk factors.But they are more mobile and offer the user a convenient connection via eSata or another interface for connecting to a PC. Thus, this guide on how to recover a hard drive will be useful both for owners of "traditional" drives and external ones.

The hard disk was in the laptop, the system in which stopped loading. What am I going to format it for - but! It was not there, as an “External” disk (I stuffed it into the case from an external “Transend” 500 GB) it is visible only as a local disk “G” and “F” without any information. All attempts to call the properties lead to the hang of Windows 8.1 on the laptop - not visible in Disk Management, HDD Low Level Format too. Tell me, if the hard drive does not work, then how can I bring it back to life with my own hands?

Answer... Try to partition the hard disk again (Partiton Magic to help), it is desirable to perform low-level formatting of the HDD, see information on the topic here. By the way, in addition to HDD Low Level Format, there are many alternative formatting utilities. It will not be superfluous to check the working condition of the disk, for this check the SMART indicators and scan the disk using the HDD Regenerator or Victoria HDD.

What if the hard drive clicks? That is, it works, but sometimes it emits characteristic sounds - that is, clicks. At some moments, it freezes, and the operating system freezes, and then dies along with the disk.

Answer... In rare cases, the problem is associated with a broken power pins and sata / ide connectors connected to the motherboard. Therefore, the first step is to turn off your PC and check the connection to the hard drive. Second, be sure to back up the data on the disk, since clicks are an unhealthy symptom, indicating that the HDD has problems, and you can expect a crash at any time. Third, to diagnose the condition of the disk, use specialized programs - HDD Regenerator, Victoria HDD Doctor, etc.

If the hard drive clicks and is not detected, the situation is more dire (write it all). In this case, the mechanics are already worn out, and you cannot restore the HDD, only replacing the hard drive with a new one will help.

How do I increase the speed of my hard drive? I have Windows Vista.

Answer... Users of Windows Vista and above resent the slow performance of the disk subsystem. In practice, copying files is noticeably slower than in XP. Why is the hard drive slowing down? One of the reasons lies on the surface and is easily eliminated. The fact is that the maximum speed of the hard drive is disabled by default in Windows. Therefore, we are urgently taking action:

  1. Open Device Manager (Win + Pause Break, link "Device Manager").
  2. Find the disk device in the list of devices and select Properties from the context menu.
  3. Select the Policy tab and enable the Enable Enhanced Performance option.
  4. Restart your computer to speed up the hard drive.

I reinstalled the system and I have it on the PCE SSD, suddenly another hard drive on 4TB stopped being detected? Then I went into computer management, then into disk management, it shows a capacity of 3.7 TB and free 3.7 TB, that is, it turns out the disk is 100 percent empty and there is 2TB of information! Please tell me what you can do?

Answer... Perhaps the problem is related to the failure of the file system table, in such a situation, you can advise the TestDisk utility to restore a partition that is not detected by the system, but contains important information.

I have an HP 620 laptop. Everything was fine, but I started closing windows and the computer froze. I thought it would leave, it took about 15 minutes - nothing, there was no reaction to anything. Even the software shutdown could not reset.

He turned it off physically with a button, turned it on again and on the black screen of the laptop knocked out the message: non-system disk or disk error replace and strike any key when ready. After that, the system does not see the hard drive. But when the laptop is turned on, it spins, that is, everything is ok with power.

About 2 years ago I updated the BIOS from the official site. Maybe because of this, the hard drive will not open? But he worked hard before, all the time well. What could be? Please help me, this is my hard drive - Toshiba HDD2E67 320GB.

Answer... If the problem was with the BIOS, the OS would not boot. Or, at the very least, a factory reset might solve something.

Try to start looking for the reason on the surface: the hard drive does not work because it is out of order. This could have happened for a variety of reasons (for example, physical damage or wear and tear - which is less likely). If it is possible to test a similar hard drive on the same laptop, do so.

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Hard disk repair is a procedure that, in some cases, allows you to restore the drive to work. Due to the specifics of this device, it is usually impossible to fix serious damage on your own, but minor problems can be eliminated without contacting a specialist.

You can return the HDD to a working state even if it is not visible in the BIOS. However, it is far from often possible to repair a drive due to the complexity of its design. In some cases, it may be necessary to pay for repairs an amount several times higher than the cost of the hard drive itself, and it makes sense to do this only to restore extremely important data stored on it.

It is necessary to distinguish the repair of the hard drive from its restoration. In the first case, we are talking about restoring the operability of the device, and in the second, about the return of lost data. If you need to get back files deleted or lost as a result of formatting, check out our other article:

You can also replace the hard drive with your own hands, and, if possible, copy the files from the old HDD to the new one. This is suitable for those users who do not want to contact specialists and prefer to simply get rid of a failed drive.

Broken sectors can be divided into software and physical. The former are easily restored by various utilities, and as a result, the HDD works stably and without failures.

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The treatment of physically damaged sectors does not involve the use of programs. In this case, the drive itself may begin to emit sounds unusual for it: clicks, creaks, rustling, etc. Other manifestations of problems include system freezing even when performing simple tasks, disappearance of files or folders, or the appearance of an empty unallocated space.

It is impossible to fix this problem of a computer or laptop hard drive manually. Therefore, the user has to either replace the hard drive with a new one and, if possible, transfer important data to it, or use the services of wizards who recover data from a physically damaged surface in special conditions.

You can understand that there are problems with sectors using the programs:

If the device is still working, but is already unstable, you should think about purchasing a new drive as soon as possible. At the same time, the use of a PC with a damaged HDD is strongly recommended to be minimized.

After connecting the second hard drive, you can clone the entire HDD or only the operating system.

A physically sound drive may not be detected by the operating system even when connected to another computer, but it may be visible in the BIOS.

There are several situations in which Windows does not see the device:

    Missing drive letter. It may happen that the volume is left without a letter (C, D, E, etc.), due to which it will no longer be visible to the system. Simple formatting usually helps here.

After that, if you need to get back the deleted data, use special programs.

Read more: Programs for recovering deleted files
The disc is in RAW format. Formatting will help resolve this situation, but it is not the only way to get the NTFS or FAT file system back. Read more about this in our other article:

Lesson: How to change the RAW format of HDD disks
Windows does not see the new hard drive. The newly purchased HDD and connected to the system unit may not be detected by the system, and this is absolutely normal. To start using the device, you need to initialize it.

In more serious cases, the hard drive may not be visible not only in the operating system, but also in the BIOS. Typically, the BIOS displays all connected devices, even those that are not detected in Windows. Thus, you can understand that physically they work, but there are software conflicts.

When the device is not detected in the BIOS, in most cases this is due to one of two reasons:

    Incorrect motherboard connection / motherboard problems

Image - DIY repair hdd after a fall

To perform the test, turn off the computer, remove the cover of the system unit and carefully check if the cable from the hard drive to the motherboard is properly connected. Inspect the wire itself for physical damage, debris, dust. Check the socket on the motherboard, make sure the cable is firmly attached to it.

If possible, use an alternative wire and / or try connecting another HDD to check if the socket on the motherboard is working and if the hard drive is visible in the BIOS.

Even if the hard drive was installed a long time ago, it is still necessary to check the connection. The cable can simply move away from the socket, as a result of which the BIOS cannot detect the device.
Mechanical breakdown

As a rule, in this case, the user can hear clicks when starting the PC, and this will mean that the HDD is trying to start its work. But due to a physical breakdown, he cannot do this, so neither Windows nor BIOS can see the device.

Only professional repair or replacement under warranty will help here.

In both cases, the data on the disk will be lost.

If you hear a knock inside the hard drive, then most likely the controller has been damaged. Sometimes the hard drive may additionally not be detected in the BIOS.

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To fix this problem, you will need to completely change the controller, but it is almost impossible to do this on your own. Specialized companies carry out such repairs, but it will cost a lot. Therefore, it makes sense to contact the masters only when the information stored on the disk is very important.

In a normal state, the drive should not make any sounds other than noise during reading or writing. If you hear uncharacteristic squeaks, pops, clicks, knocks or even scratches, it is very important to stop using the damaged HDD as soon as possible.

Depending on the severity of the damage, the drive may not be detected in the BIOS, stop abruptly, or, on the contrary, unsuccessfully try to start spinning up.

In this case, it is very difficult to diagnose the problem on your own. A technician will need to disassemble the device to determine the source of the malfunction. In the future, based on the results of the inspection, replacement of the damaged element will be required. It can be a head, cylinder, plate or other elements.

Repairing a drive yourself is a very dangerous endeavor. Firstly, you may not always be able to understand for yourself what exactly needs repair. Secondly, there is a huge chance of destroying the drive. But if you want to try your hand, then you should start by properly disassembling the hard drive and getting to know its main components.

Disassembly will be relevant if you are ready for a complete failure of the device, are not afraid to lose the stored data, or have already made a backup.

Decreased performance is another common reason why the user will feel that the hard drive is having some kind of malfunction. Fortunately, an HDD, unlike a solid state drive (SSD), does not tend to decrease in speed over time.

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Slow performance usually results from software factors:

  • Garbage;
  • High fragmentation;
  • Overflowed startup;
  • Unoptimized HDD parameters;
  • Broken sectors and errors;
  • Outdated connection mode.

How to eliminate each of these reasons and increase the speed of the device, read in our separate article:

A hard drive is a fragile device that is very easy to damage by any external physical impact, be it shaking or falling. But in some cases, it can break even with careful use and complete isolation from negative factors. The declared service life of the HDD is about 5-6 years, but in practice it often fails 2 times faster. Therefore, you, as a user, need to take care of the safety of important data in advance, for example, have an additional HDD, USB flash drive or use cloud storage. This will save you from losing personal information and additional money spent on its recovery.

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Posted by: admin in My computer 01/03/2018 0 512 Views

If a sad situation has occurred when the hard disk has received physical damage, whether it is damage from a fall or it was simply hit, then you are not in a hurry to be upset by the loss of data, because we striving to talk about computers in Russian and in the most accessible language, have prepared this article for you, from which you will learn how to restore an external hard drive after a fall.

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In this article, we focus on the methods and devices with which it is possible to eliminate mechanical problems, because it is because of them that violations occur that do not allow the hard drive to read information.

Image - DIY repair hdd after a fall