Essential Tips for Data Recovery from Hard Drives

Imagine storing your files, images, data, and important documents on your hard drive. If one fine day your hard drive malfunctions or fails, don't fret because you can still recover and salvage your valuable data. It just takes a little extra effort and time. Below are some tricks you need to know for data recovery from hard drives.

Identifying Signs of a Faulty Hard Drive

Think of the hard drive on your computer like a car, and you can understand how it operates, what sounds it makes, and how long it takes to get from point A to point B every day.

However, if you notice any unusual signs with your hard drive, chances are you'll soon need to replace it. Mytour advises you to regularly back up the hard drive on your computer, in case you notice the following signs:

- If you hear hard drive noise or unusual computer sounds, it may indicate a problem. These strange noises often repeat because the read head is attempting to write data while the hard drive is faulty or damaged.

- Some performance issues, or other problems like computer freezes, crashes, blue screen errors, increasing frequency of corrupted files, or when moving data to another folder or accessing data but receiving error messages on the screen. If you encounter this issue, it's advisable to back up or copy your important data to an external hard drive or a safer location.

- The physical shape of the hard drive is also a sign that it may be faulty. Dust and other factors can impact and damage the surface of the hard drive. Carefully remove the computer hard drive and check for any signs of damage.

Essential Tips for Data Recovery from Hard Drives

If you notice signs that your hard drive is about to fail or is already failing. Below are some solutions, tricks for you to check and confirm whether the issue is related to the computer hard drive or other problems, incidents.

Note: In case the cause is a faulty hard drive, applying these solutions increases the risk of overwriting data and damaging the hard drive even more. In this case, it's best to shut down the computer and take it to reputable data recovery centers for assistance.

Solution 1: Run Diagnostics Test. Most hard drive manufacturers provide free diagnostic tools to assess the condition of the hard drive. Fujitsu, Western Digital, Seagate, and Hitachi all offer effective diagnostic utilities, far surpassing standard diagnostic tools integrated into operating systems. Visit the manufacturer's support page to download and install the latest utility version.

Solution 2:

Scan your computer for malware. Another possible cause of your computer freezing or experiencing blue screen errors may be spyware or adware installed on the system. Try running antivirus and malware software to scan if your system is affected by these malicious programs.

Solution 3: Run disk defragmentation. Defragmentation and system optimization can also make a difference in performance, but this is very rare. Newer macOS versions will automatically defragment, sometimes called Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering, but on Windows, users will need to run the Disk Defragmentor utility integrated into the operating system.

Solution 4: Check all external connections. While not critical, this solution should not be overlooked. Ensure that your hard drive is properly connected to the components on your computer.

Data Recovery from Hard Drive

If you determine that the cause is a faulty hard drive, you can consider some options, solutions below to recover data.

Note: Mytour does not guarantee that all the solutions below can help you recover your valuable files, data, but these are solutions you can try before considering bringing them to data recovery centers for assistance.

Step 1: If you still have access to another computer, you can connect the hard drive using a USB cable or dock. Try connecting the faulty, damaged hard drive to another computer and check if the drive containing your files and data is displayed after connecting to the working device.

If you are using Mac, you can connect the potentially faulty hard drive to another working Mac via a FireWire cable.

During the Mac startup process, press and hold the T key simultaneously until the FireWire icon appears to boot the Mac into Target Mode, allowing you to access the target computer's hard drive. Alternatively, you can access Target Mode by clicking System Preferences => Startup Disk Mode located at the bottom right corner.

Step 2: Next, download and install data recovery software to retrieve your data. There are many effective free data recovery tools available on the market. However, the limitation of free software is the restriction of some features. Below, Mytour will introduce you to a list of effective data recovery software, including both free and paid software:

- Recuva (for Windows / free): Recuva is one of the most effective free data recovery software options available. Piriform's software allows users to recover important files, data from dead, damaged, or formatted hard drives. Additionally, Recuva can recover unsaved Word documents, deleted emails, music files, or any other data files.

Download Recuva and install it here: Download Recuva

- TestDisk (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux / free): TestDisk's data recovery software is suitable for experienced computer users. This software is primarily designed to recover lost partitions or non-booting hard drives but requires users to operate on the Command Prompt. TestDisk's advantage is quick and effective data recovery without overwriting the hard drive.

Download TestDisk and install it here: Download TestDisk

- FileSalvage (for Mac OS X / $80): FileSalvage is one of the best options for recovering data from a connected faulty hard drive on Mac OS X. This paid software allows users to recover over 100 different file types on damaged or corrupted hard drives. FileSalvage's interface is simple and user-friendly, making it an excellent solution for users to recover data from their faulty hard drives.

Download FileSalvage and install it here: Download FileSalvage

- UndeletePlus (for Windows / $40): The trial version of UndeletePlus can scan and detect recoverable files. To recover these files, users are required to upgrade to the paid package. UndeletePlus has a visually appealing interface, allowing users to recover their data with just 1 mouse click, quickly and easily.

Download UndeletePlus and install it here: Download UndeletePlus

- Data Rescue 3 (for Mac OS X/ $100): Prosoft's first data recovery software is the most expensive among the software introduced by Mytour in this list. Data Rescue 3 allows scanning and copying data from damaged hard drives, with a higher data recovery rate compared to other software.

Download Data Rescue 3 and install it here: Download Data Rescue 3

Additionally, you can try MiniTool Partition Recovery, a highly effective software for data recovery with high efficiency.

Step 3: If you have tried all the solutions above but still have no luck, you will definitely need help from experts or reputable data recovery centers to retrieve your important data. You can refer to the data recovery centers we evaluate below:

=>Data Recovery Center in Hanoi
=>Data Recovery Center in HCM

Here are some tips to know when rescuing hard drive data. Additionally, if you are using a Mac and accidentally delete important files, data on Mac, you can refer to the article on how to recover deleted files on Mac OS X on Mytour to learn how to recover your data.