Even if data on a hard drive is lost due to corruption, damage, or accidental deletion, retrieving its contents is still possible.
To recover data from the hard drive, first ensure it isconnected to your computer. Then, userecovery software/deviceor seek help fromspecialiststo restore its contents.
This article explains everything you may do to recover important contents from a corrupt hard disk drive. If you deleted some files on your system by mistake, check out ourHow to Recover Deleted Filesarticle instead.
Now, let’s move on to the actual methods.
Connect Hard Drive to Computer
If the hard drive is already inside your computer, directly proceed to the next step. Otherwise, you need to connect it first.
If it’s an external drive, you should be able to connect it to a USB port. For internal drives,connect it to your motherboard via a SATA cableoruse a SATA to USB adapter.
For the first method,open your PC case, connectthe SATA power cableand the data cable to the hard drive. Then, connect the other end of the data cable to the to themotherboard’s SATA port.
If yoursystem freezesafter connecting the hard drive, it’s likely stuck while mounting it. It’s best todisable the automount featurebefore connecting the drive in such cases. To do so on Windows,
After you are done recovering the data,remove the hard driveand use the commandautomount enableonDiskpart.
Use Recovery Software
The next step is to get a reliable recovery software. Go throughuser reviews of different recovery appsbefore downloading it. ensure youcheck its dedicated instructionsas well.
Then,run the data recovery softwareand attempt to recover the drive’s data. A recovery software checks for underlying data sector by sector. So it should work even after aquick formator when your systemdoesn’t mount/show the drive.
Use Data Recovery Device
If the majority of the sectors in the hard drive are corrupted, recovery software may not be able to recover its contents or will take too much time.
In such cases, use adedicated data recovery deviceto speed up the process. It is something you’ll have to purchase, but it is cheaper than recovery specialists.
During a normal recovery process, the software keeps making several attempts to recover data from a disk sector. These recovery devices will instead stop such attempts andmove on to other sectors if the recovery is not possibleor takes too long.
This way, you’ll be able to recover some data from the hard drive at least.
Get Help from Recovery Specialists
A hard drive consists of multiple parts like platters, an arm with a read-write head, a control circuit, ports, a firmware ROM chip, and so on. Issues with any such parts can completely kill the hard drive.
If your drive is fully dead, a recovery device or software may not be able to retrieve its data. If the drive contains very crucial data, seek help fromdata recovery specialists.
They have proper tools to replace broken components, even the ROM chip, and may succeed in data retrieval. However, keep in mind they may not be able to retrieve everything depending on the damage or corruption.
Not all recovery services are reliable. Try looking for anISO-certifiedone that offersdata confidentialityanddoes not take service charge for a failed recovery.
Extra Tips:
All these solutions require professional recovery tools and software, which may be costly. So before trying them out, check if you havebacked up the hard drive’s contentssomewhere.
Various OS have different built-in methods ofbackup and restoration, such asWindows BackupsandFile History. Look out for those along with any backups on yourcloud storage.
