Now-a-days the most popular and convenient storage media being used world wide, to store data, are Hard Drives. Although hard drives were introduced for general purpose computers, they have now extended their service to smaller devices such as camcorders and cell phones.

Since the hard drive is composed of various components like, platters, read/write head, motors, etc., it is understandable, that it faces a logical or a physical crash, even if one of these components is damaged, or is not working properly.

Early Signs!

Before a hard drive crash happens, you usually get a number of informative signs, that indicate that your computer hard drive might fail in the near future, resulting in loss of important and confidential data. Symptoms of hard drive crash include the following:

• System Boot Failure
• No Disk Access
• Unfamiliar humming and crunching noises, coming from the machine
• Blue or black screen on Startup
• System often reboots, restarts, hangs or freezes
• Error messages like “No Fixed Disk Present” , “Drive not formatted” and “Operating system not found”

Why Do Hard Drives crash?

Hard drive crashes can be catastrophic and they get corrupted or damaged due to number of reasons. These factors can be broadly classified into physical failure and logical failure.

1. Physical Failure
   Hard Disk Drives are susceptible to dust, water, heat, humidity, moisture, extreme temperatures and damage due to external shock. The symptoms of a hard disk crash due to physical failure can be identified by:
   • Ticking or scratching noise coming from the drive
   • Heads sticking into disk platters
   • Head crash
   • Spindle motor system failure
   • PCB failure

   When you spot any clicking or crunching noise from the hard drive, immediately shut down the system, as further use will make matters worse, further causing permanent data loss.

   Recovering data from a physically crashed hard drive is comparatively more complex, as it requires specialized service environment like the one provided by Clean Rooms. Such type of data recovery cases can be handled by Data Recovery Specialists. In case of a physical failure, we suggest, that you get the help of  Data Recovery Specialists, to recover the lost data.

2. Logical Failure
   Logical failure refers to any other non-physical failure types. Recovering data from hard drive that has undergone a logical failure can be the easiest or the most difficult process, depending on the circumstances.Logical Failure basically includes,  accidental deletion, accidental format, file corruption, file system corruption, viruses and malware, Operating system crashes and many more.

REMO Recover (Windows) Pro Edition is a powerful recovery software that can easily recover data from a hard drive, having logical failure. It lets the user recover data from re-formatted partitions,and re-partitioned drives. It also lets the user create a disk image, and lets the user recover the data from the created disk image. Try it Now!

Steps to be followed in case of a Hard Drive Crash and to recover lost data from a crashed hard drive, using REMO Recover (Windows) Pro Edition software:

Step 1: Stop working on the drive immediately.

Step 2: Do not run any repair utility for e.g. “chkdsk ”, as this may lead to further data loss, rendering the data irrecoverable.

Step 3: Avoid saving any data onto the crashed hard drive.

Step 4: Remove the crashed hard drive from your PC, and connect it to another PC as a slave, where REMO Recover (Windows) Pro Edition software has been installed.

Step 5: Launch the application either by double clicking the desktop shortcut, or by selecting the icon, from the Programs list in the Start Menu. The Main window pops up, as shown in Figure a.

Figure a: Main window

Step 6: Click on the button. As you click on the Recover-Advanced button, a new window is displayed, as shown in figure b.

At this stage of the process, you need to decide on the partition which you wish to recover.

• If you have to recover data from a NTFS partition, go through the article Recover lost files from a NTFS Partition.
• If you have to recover data from a FAT partition, then continue following the steps as explained below.

Continue the recovery process, by clicking the button.

Figure b: Select Partition for recovery

Step 7: As soon as you click the FAT Partition Recovery button, a new window will be displayed. Select the Wizard button, present on the upper left hand corner of the window. As soon as you click the Wizard button, the wizard is launched, as shown in Figure c.

Figure c:Wizard

Step 8: Select the Recover your data option and click on the Next button to continue. As you click the Next button, a window to select the physical drive from which data needs to be recovered,will be displayed, as shown in figure d.

Figure d: Select Physical drive

Select a source drive and the processing mode to process the drive. REMO Recover (Windows) Pro Edition software provides two processing modes,

• Display default partitions- This option displays the partitions already present on the hard drive.

• Search for lost partitions- This option displays the lost or corrupted partitions of that hard drive, which are not listed in the Display default partitions option.

Note: By default, the processing mode is set to Display default partition(s). If you do not find the partition(s) you are looking for, in the default list, then, you can search for lost partitions, by clicking the Search for lost partition(s) radio button.

You can use the Quick Scan or the Thorough Scan method, for finding the lost partitions.  Quick Scan does a swift search for the lost partitions, and hence saves time. Thorough Scan does a detailed search, and therefore is more dependable.

Select the Thorough Scan option, and click the Next button.

As you select the processing mode, and click the Next button, the software analyzes the selected drive, and lists all the found partitions in the table, as shown in Figure e.

Figure e: Found Partitions

Step 9: Select a partition for processing and click on the Finish button. The application processes the partition, and displays the found files and folders in a tree structure, as shown in Figure f.

Figure f: Found Files and Folders

Step 10: Once the found files and folders, are listed in a tree format, the next step is to save the data onto a safe location.

After tree formation, you can save the entire tree to any desired destination drive, using the Save all option from the Tools menu, or right click on the Folder/ File you want to save,  and select the Save option. As you click on the  Save option, a window to select the destination drive to save the recovered data, is displayed, as shown in Figure g.

Figure g: Select destination drive

Select a path and click on the OK button. As you click the OK button, the saving process starts. Once saving process is complete, you will receive a pop up message intimating the same.

All the files will be saved into a folder by name “#” in the selected destination drive.

Important:

• If you do not find your files and folders in the tree structure formed, then select the Turbo scan option from Tools menu. Turbo scan performs rigorous search to find files and folders, and lists all the found files and folders.
• You can save the scanned information by selecting the Save scan information option, from the Tools menu. You can open scan info file whenever required using the Open scan information option in File menu and recover data to the desired destination drive.

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