How to Retrieve Data from Damaged Hard Drive

Theo Lucia

Dec 23, 2022 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

Can data be recovered from a damaged hard drive?

Files in My WD external hard disk get damaged somehow, and now I can't access them. How can I recover data from my hard drive?

You should know that most of the storage devices, such as hard drive, have limited life for storing important information. The lifetime of a hard drive today lasts up to 5 to 10 years, depending on the quality and production. The hard drive can be failed quickly under intense temperature and humidity factors, with data loss following.

If you wonder how to recover data from a damaged hard drive, you have landed on the right page. This article will talk about the chance of damaged hard disk recovery, how to recover data from a damaged disk, and some tips on failed hard drive recovery.

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Part 1. Can Hard Disk Data Be Recovered?

If your hard drive gets damaged, data loss is the most common scenario. Can you recover data from a damaged external hard drive? Yes, you still have a chance of damaged hard drive recovery. First, you can connect your hard drive to another computer and see if you can browse the data. If yes, you can copy them to another good hard drive. Also, you can take some DIY measures to repair a damaged hard drive and thus bring back lost data. If all fail, to recover bad hard disk, you should fall back on a damaged HDD recovery program, or ask for help from some hard drive recovery services.

How much does it cost to recover data from a hard drive?

It can be costly if you recover data from damaged hard disk using hard drive data recovery service, ranging from $150 to $1500. However, you can still get your damaged files back at a low price. The way is to take advantage of hard drive data recovery software. It is a safer and more reliable approach to damaged hard drive recovery. Moreover, it is averagely priced at $50, which can save you a lot of money while the desired results can be reached.

Part 2. How to Recover Data from Damaged Hard Drive

When it comes to damaged hard drive recovery software, Recoverit Data Recovery is the power that can't be ignored. With it, you can get all lost data back under a wide range of situations, even from an internal hard drive that won't boot. It enables you to create a bootable drive for running the dead hard drive and extracting the lost data.

It supports to recover deleted, lost or formatted data from the damaged hard drive. With this damaged disk recovery software, 1000+ formats of data can be recovered, such as different types of photos, videos, audios, office files, and so forth. No matter why your hard drive is damaged or why you lose your essential files, Recoverit Data Recovery can help you retrieve data from the damaged hard drive at minimal cost and in no time.

3 Steps to Retrieve Data from Damaged Hard Drive

You can free download and install Recoverit Hard Drive Recovery on your Windows computer, and follow the next steps to recover data from the damaged hard drive. If your damaged hard drive is an external device, please connect it to your computer beforehand and make sure the computer recognizes it.

This guide only focuses on the steps of internal hard drive data retrieval on the Windows computer.
If you need to get data back from Mac hard drive, refer to this guide: How to Recover Data from Mac Hard Drive.
How do I recover data from a dead computer hard drive? You can go to this page: How to Recover Data from Dead Hard Drive.

1. Select a hard drive

Launch the damaged hard drive data recovery software, and select a location. For damaged HDD recovery, you need to select the corrupt hard disk and click "Start" to proceed.

1. Scan the failed disk

After specifying the drive where your data has been lost, you can find the hard disk scanned thoroughly. Wait for a while, and you can get a list of files displayed according to the categories - File Path and File Type.

1. Preview and retrieve the lost data

When the search has been completed, you can preview the items that have been found. If they are the right ones, simply select the items you want to retrieve and click "Recover" to get them back.

Video Tutorial on Damaged Hard Drive Recovery

Recover Data from Damaged/Failed/Crashed Hard Drive?

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Part 3. Tips on Hard Drive Failure Recovery

The final section is about some tips that can help you recover data from a damaged hard drive with less effort. After that, we would like to share some information with you.

A Few Tips for Hard Drive Recovery

What Happens When Hard Disk Fails?

Why do hard drives fail? A hard drive can be damaged due to many reasons, including firmware and manufacture fault, computer crash, virus attack, electronic failure, overheating, file corruption, too many bad sectors, and so on. So if you want to protect the data in the hard drive, you should know the reasons behind it and try your best to avoid it. What are the symptoms of hard disk failure?

All the above shows you how to tell if a hard drive is damaged. Once you find anyone sign, check the hard drive health immediately, or create backups of files inside it.

Anyway, recovering data from the damaged hard drive can be a breeze if you have a qualified tool like Recoverit Data Recovery. It can also help you restore data from emptied recycle bin, formatted hard drive, removable storage devices, crashed system, virus-attacked computer, lost partition, and so on. When you find files lost, deleted or damaged, don't worry. Recoverit always stands by you.