This is a guest post from Carrie Carter of Disc, Inc:
Why Did My Hard Drive Crash???
This is the number one question we receive from our recovery clients. Unfortunately, there is no one answer. Technically, we can find out what broke, but it is almost impossible to determine why it broke.
A hard drive is like a record player (for those of us who remember what a record player is!)…
The two main components are the platters and the head assembly. Like a record player, there are other components like circuit boards and various electronic parts that help out, but these can also cause problems. The platters are like records, but they spin at 5400 rpm or faster, depending on the drive. The head assembly is like the needle, but 1000 times SMALLER and it never touches the platters. The head floats back and forth, reading and writing magnetized data on a thin pocket of air caused by the fast spinning rotation of the platters.
Now, back to the question… Why did your hard drive crash? Barring human accidents, like knocking the drive off your desk or dropping your laptop on the floor, the best answer we can give is that the drive is mechanical and when you apply heat, movement and electricity to something spinning and moving at extremely high speeds, anything can go wrong.
So maybe the drive you purchased was the last one on the assembly line being put together the Friday before a holiday or maybe it was just your lucky day… the possibilities are endless.
What is our recommendation? Make sure your data is backed up to an alternate drive or media source on a regular basis. If you are working on a highly critical or important project, BACK UP DAILY. It pays to be prepared, because a hard drive can work fine on one day and crash the next.
Disc, Inc is a company serving nationwide clients with data conversion, duplication, and replication services.
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