Hard Drive Troubleshooting

A computer hard drive troubleshooting is fairly easy to detect, because hard drive symptoms are unique, and most of the time it can be fixed with a windows system restore or with a scan disk. Most of the time troubleshooting of a hard drive doesn't require the replacement of the component, just a format or a scan disk can do the job to avoid spending your money in a hard disk.

Remember that SATA/IDE hard drives are easily damaged by shock, the spindles inside are very sensitive and if you happen to drop your hard disk often (external hard drives), kick your computer or any same type of damage it can do irreversible spindle damage and you will need to buy a new hard drive.

Solid state drives are not prone to damage by shock, and because it doesn't use spindle and disks, it's damage and shock resistant but these drives cost a LOT more than normal SATA/IDE drives but they are also faster and more reliable.

Reasons a hard drive fails

A hard drive can fail for a number of reasons:

Static problems (hovering a magnet very close to it)
Age
Bad sectors in the disk
Force, pressure or shock damages
Not formatted or no operating system present
BIOS unable to detect the hard drive

A computer can be turned on and you can access the BIOS with a damaged hard drive, remember that SATA/IDE hard drives are easily damaged by shock, the spindles inside are very sensitive and if you happen to drop your hard disk often (external hard drives), kick your computer or any same type of damage it can do irreversible spindle damage and you will need to buy a new hard drive.

Failure symptoms

Hard drive has a number of unique symptoms, and because it just controls the data, you should get a live screen, here are some symptoms a hard drive may fail:

BIOS isn't registering the hard drive
Failure to find operating system
Computer not responding when trying to find some files
Unable to find boot disk/drive

Prolong your hard drive life

To keep your hard drive running effectively for years, just make sure you run scan disk and disk defragment regularly and do NOT let the hard drive fall or let your computer fall from high place and if you're gonna kick or hit your computer (not recommended) be sure it's in a place far away from the hard drive, ESPECIALLY if it's a laptop.

Solutions

There are two things that can be done to try to save your hard drive, these things can be done whenever your hard drive is giving you problems:

See if your hard drive is detected in the BIOS
Run scan disk
Using system restore
Format the hard drive

First, look to see if your hard drive is detected by the BIOS or you can see your new hard disk on the boot screen (some computers have this option enabled, where you can see other components as well like RAM) by pressing the DEL, F1 or F2 key at boot screen. If your hard drive isn't detected by the BIOS then it's a connection problem, check both cables to the hard drive, the data cable and the power cable, if the hard disk is IDE, then check that the jumper is set to MASTER, it can also be a compatibility problem, especially with laptops. Remember that if the hard disk is not detected in the BIOS it will not boot, install a new operating system, or format and partition the drive.

If the hard drive is detected by the BIOS, it means your computer is recognizing the hard drive and it is correctly installed, but if your computer gives you one of these messages when it tries to boot, then the problem is with the hard disk itself or the data inside it:

Operating system not found
Unable to boot from drive
Non system disk
No boot media

If this is your problem, then the fix is simply formatting the drive and installing the operating system (Windows). Proceed installing the operating system from the CD if the hard disk is detected in the BIOS.

More Information

There are more ways you can do hard drive recovery, these are just a few ways.

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