How to repair a damaged hard drive step by step?

That a hard drive starts to fail and throws error messages is sometimes unavoidable for any computer user. And when this sadly happens, the first question that comes to your mind is: "Can it be repaired?".

Index of contents

How to repair a damaged hard drive

But that is not all. The main problem will be the files you have stored on that disk. Those files that are so important to you and you don't want to lose. Are they recoverable?

This guide will help you answer those questions. Recovering your important data from that failed hard drive and eventually repairing it is possible in the following cases:

• Hard disk not booting Dead hard disk Locked hard disk Damaged hard disk Undetectable hard disk through Windows Undetectable hard disk using disk manager Hard disk that cannot be detected in BIOS

In this article you will find options to repair and remove bad sectors in Windows 10/8/7 and Linux, both on an external storage device and on a hard disk, without losing data.

If you can't access the data on your PC or USB drive due to bad sectors, follow these steps to restore the data and then repair the bad sectors.

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Bad sectors on a hard drive

In simple words, it is a section on the hard drive that becomes inaccessible. This small and faulty pool of storage space will not respond to any read or write requests. These sectors can be of two types: one that results from a software error and the other from physical damage.

Occasionally, when one or more bad sectors appear on a healthy hard disk, the disk will crash. When this happens, the data in those sectors could be lost, but the data on the rest of the disk will not be affected and the disk will still be fully usable.

Image wikipedia.org

Those bad sectors cannot be repaired, but can be marked as unusable. Once marked as unusable, the operating system will know that it will no longer have to store data in those bad sectors.

The total capacity of the disk will be decreased by the amount of storage space in those damaged sectors. If the bad sector was caused by a failed head, the problem could spread to many other sectors through the disk.

Therefore, if your hard drive is experiencing one or more bad sectors, it is recommended to backup the disk immediately and repair or fix these sectors as soon as possible.

How to repair bad sectors in Windows

The first step to repair bad sectors is to restore important files from hard drive. We recommend professional data recovery software, such as EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, which supports restoring lost data from complex situations, including recovering data on a hard drive with bad sectors.

After recovering your data, you can start to repair bad sectors on hard drive, SSD or other external USB devices in Windows 10, 8 and 7.

Here we will see two main methods to manage this work: eliminate the bad sectors of the hard disk without the need to format using the native Windows tool or using EaseUS Partition Master.

Eliminate bad sector with EaseUS Partition Master

EaseUS Partition Master can directly help you check and remove damaged sectors from hard drive in Windows 10/8/7 with a few simple clicks.

1. Start EaseUS Partition Master and right click on the partition you want to check by clicking “Check Partition”.

1. Choose how you want to use the check:

• Require Windows Chkdsk.exe to fix errors if found Check the properties of the Surface Test partition

Click on "Ok".

1. Allow EaseUS Partition Master to automatically check for hard drive partition errors and to repair the errors. Click "Ok" to finish the process.

Manual repair of bad sectors with Windows

For Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 users:

• Press Win + X and open File Explorer. From the left panel choose "This team". Select the unit and right click and go to Properties, go to Tools> Check.

• In the new window click on "Repair unit". Review the scan result. Click "Scan and repair the drive." Choose when you want to repair the file system. Wait for Windows 10/8 to scan and repair bad sectors on the hard drive.

Signs indicating bad sectors on the hard disk

We help you identify the common signs and symptoms that indicate bad sectors on a hard drive:

• Generation of strange noises when booting, especially at the time of reading / writing and opening of the hard disk drive. Generation of error messages. Files get corrupted when executing a program or reading a file. The system consumes a lot of time to execute a program or read a file. The system shows a blue screen. When your system shows a warning message like “General error reading. Drive C ”or“ Sector Not Found ”, even if you haven't been attacked by a virus. When Windows can't complete formatting the hard drive. When the system every time, when booting, it automatically runs Scandisk to scan for errors on the hard drive.

If you see any of the aforementioned symptoms, then you will have to repair the damaged sectors immediately for the sake of your data security and integrity.

Now, the next important point of consideration that should rock your mind is how to run hard drive recovery.

Recover data from hard drive using software

Using different software is one of the best ways to take advantage of lost, deleted or inaccessible data. The data recovery market is full of softwares that allow the user to recover data with 0% risk. One of these well-known tools is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery.

Powerful scanning engine, state-of-the-art algorithms and innovative features support this software, and help user to recover data that seemed inaccessible. In addition to being complete and easy to use, this data recovery software is 100% safe and reliable. It is compatible with Windows 10 and earlier versions. Just download it, install it and follow the step-by-step instructions, and the process is complete.

Using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

Our favorite free alternative is using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard which is available for Windows and macOS. The free version allows us to recover files until reaching an accumulated weight in all of them of 2 GB, from there you will have to opt for the paid version. In any case, it will be enough for the needs of many users.

Recovery is very simple, first we must select the hard disk that we want to recover and click on recover.

The application will show us all the folders in our unit that we can quickly recover and an estimate of Gigas. We will select the photos / files that we want to recover and press the recover button.

After many tests, we believe that the Data Recovery Wizard is the best alternative to recover files from a damaged hard disk.

Using Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

Start and select

• Launch Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery, select the type of data you want to recover, then select the location from where you want to recover the data.

Scan and preview

• Click "Scan." Preview the files simultaneously with the scan.

Sort and save recoverable data

Saves the data after the scanning process is successfully completed. To save, select the desired files and click "Recover" to save the recoverable files to the destination.

The process is complete!

This is the way to go when bad sectors appear on a hard disk and then become inaccessible. As long as the bad sectors do not increase, the data will be safe and can be easily recovered. On the other hand, if they increase, recovery will become essential.

Therefore, it is advised to remove bad sectors at the initial stage to avoid data loss, since the safe and reliable Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a viable option.

Hard drive repair by changing the printed circuit board

Is the printed circuit board damaged? If your hard drive is not accessible in Windows but detectable in the BIOS, in the Disk Manager and with the command 'diskpart', it means that 80% of said board is good, without the need to replace it.

But there is still a 20% chance that the printed circuit board is not in condition. If you see some burns on the circuit and the hard drive is undetectable, chances are the board is to blame for the hard drive not working.

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The best thing that could happen to your board is that it had a problem with the Voltage Transient Suppressor Diode (TVS). According to Seagate's frequently asked questions, the function of a TVS diode is to protect a sensitive circuit, diverting surges and damaging voltage spikes from the load.

When a peak occurs, the diode acts quickly. Because the diode is no longer functional, the unit does not turn on. But if you turn off the diode, the unit will work normally, but without protection. Copy your data to a functional unit, throw away the old one and consider yourself lucky.

How to change the printed circuit board

But if you need yes or yes your data because they are extremely important, do not freeze the unit, since it is very possible that you worsen the problem and end up costing you much more money or directly buying a hard drive (which is what usually happens in general cases). What do you think of our article on how to repair a damaged hard drive ?