How To Check Whether Your Hard Drive Is Broken

You shouldn’t attempt to repair your hard drive before knowing for sure that it’s broken. There are many things that can go wrong with your operating system, so you must start your troubleshooting process by detecting whether your hard drive is truly at fault.

If you detect a malfunctioning of the hard drive but the operating system prompts you to perform a reformatting while you access the data, this is a hint that there are several problematic areas. These problems may lead to the crash of your system or to a decrease of its speed. You may also encounter the situation in which you can display the hard drive in the operating system, but you’re not allowed to access it.

In the event that the hard drive is at fault, the PC won’t start at all. If you see that the system asks for a reformat of the drive, don’t do it if you still need to retrieve your stored data.

 

A List Of Tools To Check And Repair Your Windows Hard Drive

The default tools that come with Windows are the best methods to check what’s wrong with your hard drive. Start by using the CHKDSK command in the control panel. There are two parameters, /r and /f that help you to analyse the hard drive track by track, in order to detect and to fix all errors. Beware though, using the CHKDSK tool on a hard drive that already has missing data will result in making this data impossible to recover.

If the faulty partition is the one that holds the operating system, you should attempt to perform this operation on a second computer or to perform the check at the next start-up of the PC. Always be very careful, as the CHKDSK tool is a very powerful one and it can wreak havoc on your PC if inappropriately used. We urge you to research online about “CHKDSK,” if you’re faced with this problem to gain a better understanding of this tool and of the way it works.

If you can’t access the hard drive, try to use TestDisk to repair it. Even though this tool is difficult to use due to its sophisticated interface, it has the ability to rescue your hard drive and your data. If everything else fails, you may want to contact your local technician to help you, in my case, I had to contact Hove Laptop Repairs who helped me resolve the issue and I managed to save my data and replace the drive for a reasonable price.

 

How To Fix A Mac Hard Drive

The OSX system has the SMART tool that can check the condition of your hard drive. It has many functions, including the detection of defective areas on faulty hard drives. When in trouble, you can also use third party tools such as DiskWarrior and several others available,

AppleJack is another tool that can fix a hard drive by reallocating bits of information to safe areas. In order to use this tool, you need to switch to single user mode. Also, consider using keyboard shortcuts for the different commands you might need.

 

What To Do When Software Solutions Fail

Depending on the severity of the issue, software tools can sometimes fail to fix it. This might be due to physical problems in various areas such as the controller board, the drive head, or the circuit board. Unless you’re an expert in such things, you should have a professional repair your computer.

To find qualified repair technicians for my local area, I search for Hove laptop repair reviews and whittle down the one I think is the most reliable and go with that.

You can do the same for your local area if you need one and make sure the reviews look natural before proceeding.