How to Recover Data from Crashed Hard Drive

Theo Lucia

Jan 15, 2024 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

Can Data Be Recovered from a Crashed Hard Drive?

If your hard drive crashes, your first reaction will probably be panic - especially when you have very important data and files stored on it. All data can be lost due to physical damage or logical damage on a hard drive. However, you can try with crashed hard drive data recovery software to retrieve your lost data from the hard drive that is crashed due to logical issues. Read a little further and learn how to recover data from a crashed hard drive with reliable hard disk crash recovery software.

Part 1. Recoverit - Crashed Hard Drive Data Recovery Software

Recoverit Data Recovery is hard drive data recovery software that can help you recover lost data as long as it is not overwritten. This hard disk crash recovery software runs an in-depth scan of your computer or external hard drive to recover lost, deleted, and inaccessible files and data securely. More surprisingly, its data recovery rate reaches up to 96%, which can ensure you stand a good chance of retrieving lost or deleted files from a variety of data storage devices, including your computer hard drive that is crashed, damaged, dead, or corrupted.

Recoverit - The Best Crashed Hard Drive Data Recovery Software

• Recover lost or deleted files, photos, audio, music, and emails from crashed hard drive effectively, safely, and completely.
• Supports data recovery from hard drives, recycle bins, memory cards, flash drives, digital cameras, and camcorders.
• Supports recovery of data for sudden deletion, formatting, lost partition, virus attack, and system crash under different situations.
• Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.10 - macOS 13 (Ventura).

Free Download | WinFree Download | Mac

Part 2. How to Recover Data from Crashed Hard Disk

1. Video tutorial on how to recover files from a crashed hard drive

This video tutorial can help you learn how to recover a crashed hard drive with Recoverit Data Recovery. We also provide the specific text-based guide below for your convenience.

Video tutorial: How to Recover Data from Crashed Hard Disk?

Recent Videos from Recoverit

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2. How to Recover Data from Crashed Hard Drive

Download and install Recoverit Data Recovery on your computer. Follow the next simple tutorial with the Recoverit Windows version to recover files from crashed hard drives. For a Mac user, this page can be your reference: Dead Mac Hard Drive Recovery.

Step 1. Select a data recovery mode
Launch Recoverit Data Recovery and select the Hard Drives and Locations option from the sidebar to recover data from crashed laptop hard disk drive.

Step 2. Choose a specific location
All detected hard drives will be listed here. Please select a hard disk drive where your data is stored. Click the "Start" button to process.

Step 3. Start a quick scan
Recoverit will quickly scan the laptop's hard drive. Once it completes, you can preview some recoverable files. If you cannot find your data, you can try the Filter option to find the files easily.

Step 5. Recover the wanted files
After the scan, you can preview and check all recoverable files on the results of the scanning. Select the wanted files from the crashed hard disk and click "Recover" to get your data back.

Note: Please save all recovered data to a safe storage device rather than the crashed hard disk drive to avoid data loss again and overwriting.

If your computer system gets crashes, it will cause data loss, and you cannot access the hard disk drive. You can take off the hard disk drive from the computer and connect the hard disk drive to another PC with an external dock or adapter. Restart the healthy computer, access the hard disk, and try to preview your data stored on the hard disk drive. You can copy the data to another external storage device, or you should get the powerful Recoverit hard drive crash recovery software to help you reboot the system and recover files when the computer crashes.

Part 3. What Causes a Hard Drive to Crash

Unfortunately, there’s not just one simple answer to this, and many factors can cause a hard drive to crash. However, the reasons for hard drives to crash are pretty simple and preventable. So if you’re aware of the causes before it happens, then you can hopefully bypass this stressful situation altogether.

• Electrical issues and power surges - Things like too much power coming through your computer in an electrical storm, can cause different issues with electrical appliances, including hard drive crashes. If possible, during any electrical storms, turn off your computer and disconnect from the mains until the storm is over to avoid any damage. Electrical storms that lead to power surges can also cause fires, so it’s better to be safe than sorry in this case, anyway.
• Overheating - Computers, especially laptops, tend to overheat, especially if they’re being used excessively, or are performing multiple heavy tasks at once. To reduce overheating, make sure your laptop or computer is placed on a steady surface such as a desk - not soft surfaces like beds or couches, and make sure the fan area of the computer is left uncovered to allow adequate ventilation.
• Old age/wear and tear - Like most things, computers have a limited life span. Now, of course, a computer will last longer if you take good care of it, but there’s no denying that age just catches up. If the wear and tear have caused your hard drive to crash, not all is lost. You may still be able to retrieve the data, however, it’s always a good idea, in any case, to ensure that everything on your computer of importance is backed up - either to an external hard drive or to the cloud, because often when a computer gives up due to age, there’s not much that can be done.
• Hardware damage - If you’ve dropped your computer or spilled something on it, then it can cause issues with the internal components, such as the hard drive head crash. These can be fixed, but not always, so extra care is always advised.
• Extreme environment - Exposure to too much heat, cold, moisture, or vibrations can cause some damage to a computer and cause the hard drive to fail, so try to avoid having a computer in these environments for too long.
• Power outage - Sudden and unexpected power outages can cause a lot of chaos on electrical appliances, such as computers. Although in most cases, the worst thing a power outage will result in is some unsaved work, it can also cause the hard drive to fail. If the power is fickle, due to weather conditions, for example, it’s best to wait until it’s more stable before using your computer relying on a power source.
• Manufacturing fault - Of course, some things just can’t be prevented - not by you, anyway. On occasion, computers will leave the factory with undiscovered faults that may make themselves known right away or after a few months. In the case of a manufacturing fault, you’re generally protected under a warranty.

What happens when a hard drive crashes?

Regardless of whether you’ve never had a hard drive crash on you, or you’ve experienced it many times, it’s every computer owner’s nightmare. Get to know the symptoms of hard drive issues, and maybe you can prevent data loss caused by crashed hard drive. Here are some of the most notable signs and symptoms of a hard drive crash:

• Unusual sounds come from the drive itself, such as humming or clicking.
• Ongoing error messages or programs crashing
• General odd, erratic, and inconsistent behavior from the computer, such as extremely low file-loading times.

The Bottom Line

If my hard drive crashes, do I lose everything? This might be your foremost anxiety after a hard drive crash. Yet, don't panic. The chances are that you can retrieve files from a corrupted hard drive with Recoverit data recovery as long as you stop using the drive and don't overwrite new data. However, it's still important to ensure that you take measures to protect your data from a hard drive crash in case some data isn't able to be recovered. Performing regular backups of your hard drive data, whether to the cloud or an external drive, will keep your data securely in place in the event of a hard drive crash.

This article only discusses how to recover data from a crashed internal hard disk, and we also provide a guide showing you how to recover files on a crashed external hard disk. If your hard drive is corrupted due to a lost partition, you can refer to the page about lost partition recovery. As for the data loss caused by the formatted hard drive, select "Formatted Disk Recovery" and turn to this post for format data recovery.