Computer Slowing Down, Frequent Freezes, Blue Screen Of Death
These are very unspecific signs that can be caused by a million different things. However, regardless of what the issue behind these symptoms is, it is recommended that you immediately make a backup. If these problems occur all of a sudden, chances are, your hard drive on its way out!
Corrupted Data
If you’re beginning to find files that fail to open and are corrupted even though they saved without errors or if files suddenly disappear, you should get worried. While again this could be due to a multitude of issues, it is also a typical sign for a gradual hard drive failure.
Accumulation Of Bad Sectors
Bad sectors are areas of the hard drive that do not maintain data integrity. They are automatically masked by the operating system and thus hard to identify. If you actually run into bad sectors, however, that certainly is a bad sign. The most common symptom is Windows trying to do a disk check very frequently. Usually, it can fix problems with files... until the hard drive runs out of spare sectors. Then a crash is imminent. It may take months or even years to manifest but if an important system file or document was located where the bad sectors are, you'll notice it quickly!
Strange Sounds
When you hear strange noises coming from your hard drive, it may be too late already. A repetitive sound also known as the click of death is caused by the head as it is trying to write data and recovers from errors in doing so. Grinding or screeching noises indicate that parts of the hardware, for example, the bearings or spindle motor, are failing.
S.M.A.R.T. Data
This is a bit technical but there are actually programs that can tell you whether your hard drive is in good shape or not. It's not the most reliable method as it relies on the hard drive itself telling the program it's in poor health but it can certainly identify failing drives, with a varying degree of success. The most popular program is CrystalDiskInfo and it's free. After you install and run it, it will immediately display whether your hard drive is in a healthy state, has a Caution (back up as soon as possible!), or, worse, Failed (need expensive data recovery). Unfortunately, S.M.A.R.T. data isn't always reliable so even if your drive is developing issues, you may see it's still marked as good. However, when you see Caution or Fail, that's a sure sign that you need to get help as soon as possible.
I Think My Hard Drive Is Failing, What Shall I Do?
So are you worried that hard drive failure is just around the corner? The truth is, even if you are not worried, it is! The only thing you can do is always keep backups of your data on a second hard drive. The likelihood that both drives will fail simultaneously is very rare. 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 friend, or possibly on a remote server, for example by using an online backup solution. We can help you set it up so you don't have to worry about losing your data.
Your failing hard drive can be replaced with another drive and we definitely recommend going for a Solid State Drive (SSD). They have no moving parts, which makes them more reliable, energy efficient, shock and vibration tolerant, but the best part - they are many times faster than hard drives! It's the best upgrade you can give to your computer.
