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IF YOU
SUSPECT
HARD DRIVE FAILURE
Do NOT Keep Using the
Drive
If you suspect that
your hard drive may be failing and important data exists on the
drive, you should stop using the drive. The longer a drive
with damage is used, the more damage it can suffer (this is
especially true if you hear a "clicking" or "grinding" noise). This can
reduce the chances of recovering valuable
data that may exist on the drive. Power the computer off and
contact a data recovery company.
Do NOT Shake/Hit the Drive
Out of
frustration, people sometimes have a bad habit of hitting or shaking
their failing hard drive. This will certainly only make
matters worse by damaging the fragile internal components of the
drive.
Do NOT Expose the Drive to Extreme Temperatures
There exists
a belief that one can freeze a hard drive in order to get it working
properly again. This is only a myth and can
actually "freeze" the data off the drive. Also never expose
your hard drive to heat. Hard drives are very sensitive to
extreme
temperatures- which is why computers are equipped with cooling fans
to keep hard drives from overheating.
Do NOT Attempt to
Physically Repair the Drive Yourself
Many users make the
mistake of trying to repair their own hard drive. This can
jeopardize the data residing on the drive.
A
hard drive should never be opened except in a Class 100 Clean Room
by a data recovery company. It only takes one particle of dust
the size of a single micron to have a severely damaged hard drive.
Do NOT Attempt to
Repair a Hard Drive With "Off The Shelf" Software
Also be wary of "off
the shelf" data recovery software. Such software can write
data to the drive causing existing data (that could have been
recovered) to be overwritten.
Do NOT Run SCANDISK, CHKDSK or FSCK On The Drive
Be careful
not to run these utilities on your failing hard drive. These
utilities are designed to correct file system errors on hard
disks. They cannot correct non file system errors. Hence they
can damage a hard drive and its data causing it to be fragmented and
unrecoverable. Newer operating systems such as Windows XP or
Windows 2000 can automatically trigger these utilities
to run. If this happens you will have approximately 10 seconds
to hit the ESC (escape) key to cancel the utility from running.
Do NOT Attempt to Format a Hard Drive or Run FDisk to Modify
the Partitions
This can
cause permanent data loss. If you have already run such a
utility or formatted the drive, DO NOT continue to use
the drive and do not install any additional software on the drive as
this can overwrite the data on the drive.
Contact a Data
Recovery Company As Soon As Possible
If the data
on the drive is important to you, it is crucial that you contact a
data recovery company to recover data from the
drive. Making the decision on which company to choose is an
important one.
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