What I Wish Everyone Knew About Hard Disk Drives

What is a hard disk drive?

Your hard disk drive is a component within your desktop, laptop or all in one computer. Your hard disk drive or HDD contains all of the information on your computer from the Microsoft Windows operating system to your precious family photographs and documents. The fact is — all drives fail it's a matter of when, HDD’s contain moving parts and have a limited life expectancy typically based on usage. Unfortunately, not all hardware is created equal, some HDD's will last for many years whereas others can fail within weeks.

How can you tell that your drive is failing?

Here are some obvious signs.... a reduction in overall computer performance such as Windows taking much longer to boot into than it used to. Or your applications taking considerably longer to open and use, saving files takes longer than it used to and so on. You may also be prompted to perform disk check’s when starting up your computer. Does your computer seem louder than usual, is there a loud grinding noise or a ticking coming from your computer case/laptop? In rare cases you may even lose files or receive errors regarding corrupted files when trying to access your documents or software. Unfortunately, most software and hardware monitoring that comes as standard with your computer is very weak in detecting these kinds of faults and will even in error report them as being OK.

What can you do about it?

Backup, backup and backup some more. If your files are important to you then you should have a minimum of 1 copy backed up onto either a secondary HDD inside your computer or an external HDD. If you are comfortable with cloud storage such as Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox and so on then you should also keep a copy there too. Quite often with HDD failure the drive performance may deteriorate to a stage where it can no longer load into Windows, however this doesn’t mean all of your data is lost. Quite often we can recover the majority if not all of your important files from a failing drive.

Can a failing drive be fixed?

The most common answer is simply no it’s not usually economically viable and therefore such a service isn’t available. The good news is that HDD’s are relatively affordable and if your computer is feeling sluggish you can upgrade to a newer much faster and more reliable Solid-State Drive or SSD. This kind of upgrade is usually a fraction of the price of a new system and the result is that your computer will operate faster than it ever has, even better than new. Windows loads within 5-20 seconds on most machines and the majority of software is accessible within 1-3 seconds.

If you think your hard drive is failing or suspect there's something wrong with your computer, don't delay call us immediately on 07 5448 3096 or visit our website homepcrepair.com.au to contact us.

The longer you wait, the greater the risks of data loss.