Why does the hard disk drive fail?

Our Answer:

There are two main reasons why hard drives fail, physical and logical.

If the BIOS does not detect the hard drive, then there's a good chance your issue is a physical one. Physical failures are typically either mechanical or electronic. Mechanical failures usually result from a failure of the high precision moving parts or a head crash. You may get some kind of warning that a mechanical failure has -- or is about to -- occur. If your hard drive makes a clicking, clanking or grinding noise, shut it down immediately and call a data recovery firm.

The other most common physical issue is an electronic failure. All hard drives have a circuit board, and this board allows the drive to communicate with the computer and vice-versa. Electrical failures are common and can occur just as easily on a new drive as it can with an old one. Heat can cause the electronics to fail so always keep your computer cool and well ventilated. Don't keep your CPU next to a window where the sun is going to beat down on it all day.

Logical failures are typically the result of file-system corruption. Common causes are accidental formatting of the drive, deletion of important registry keys or critical files, or viruses. Typically, when this is the case, your drive will still be recognized by the BIOS but it will not boot.

Another form of logical failure can occur just from normal wear and tear of the recording medium. The drive's media is used to store magnetic impressions, which the drive electronically converts to the ones and zeroes we call data. This means that the magnetic plating on the platter(s) which spin inside your drive, and upon which data is recorded, has been subject to corruption or physical damage. Physical deterioration of the magnetic medium is inevitable on all drives.