Signs of Hard Drive Failure

So what is a hard drive?

It’s a mechanical device. A spinning (in some cases up to 15,000 rotations per minute) magnetic disc that deals with long term storage of data. It has an arm that moves across the magnetic disc, wherein the space between the arm and the magnetic disc is smaller than a human hair. (Not a lot of room for error, huh?).

The hard drive contains all the information on the PC. From the Operating System, to the installed programs, and that data they produce. It’s all contained on the hard drive.

 

Failure Is Inevitable

 

All hard drives fail. All brands, all sizes, and all speeds. They’ll fail.

It’s not a question of “if?”, but “when?”. We’ve seen hard drives fail that are literally brand-new fail or be dead-on-arrival. Albeit, that’s rare, but we’ve seen it.

And we’ve seen hard drives that are 10+ years old still kicking. Again, rare, but possible.

The average lifespan of a hard drive is roughly 3-5 years.

 

Protect Yourself Against Hard Drive Failures

 

The best way to protect yourself against hard drive failures is to have a solid backup and disaster recovery plan BEFORE your hard drive fails.

Because remember, your hard drive will fail. It could be tomorrow, next year, or 6 years from now, but it will fail.

But we digress, this article is about common signs of hard drive failure.

 

Signs of Hard Drive Failure

  • Strange noises such as humming, clicking, scratching, et cetera.
  • Blue Screen of Death
  • Computer slow down
  • Corrupted Files
  • Computer Wont Boot
  • Computer wants to frequently run “CHKDSK” (check disk)
  • And On…