Resolved: How to handle a soon-to-be-decommissioned hard drive

When it's time to get rid of an old hard drive, you'll want to make sure that your data is completely gone. Follow the steps on this page for detailed instructions on how to do it.

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Hard drives do have a limited lifespan, though according to publicly available statistics, the average desktop hard drive lasts between 5 and 10 years. If you choose a reputable brand, keep your hard drive at a moderate room temperature (between 77 and 104 degrees F or 25 and 40 degrees C), and develop good habits for cleaning out your hard drive, it may last even longer. Don't shake your computer roughly, and don't spill coffee or juice on it. Drastic changes in temperature and humidity, as well as frequent moving, can shorten its life. In reality, 3-5 years is a pretty good run for a hard drive.

Imagine a hard drive you bought three years ago. One day, you're sitting down with your morning coffee, ready to resume work on a project from the night before. Oops – your computer takes almost 30 minutes to boot, and to make matters worse, project.pdf won't open; it's corrupted. All signs point to a failing hard drive. What do you do when faced with a dying one? In the best of circumstances, a gradual failure is a good thing: it has telltale symptoms that give you the chance to react, create a precise backup, and prepare for a replacement.

6 Signs Your Hard Drive Is Dying

The following is a list of signs and symptoms of a failing hard drive. If your computer is exhibiting two or three of these signs, it could mean that your hard drive is on its way out.

1. The computer is running extremely slow, frequently freezing, and experiencing blue or black screen crashes. 2. The hard drive is overheating, making unusual noises, and clicking sounds can be heard. 3. Data loss, file corruption, and disappearance with inability to open them. 4. Decreased performance and slower startup times. 5. An increase in bad sectors on the hard drive. 6. SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) errors.

If you're seeing all of the symptoms listed above, your hard drive is probably on its last legs. Next, you can check and diagnose whether your hard drive is dying or dead.

Hard Drive Diagnosis: Is It Dying or Dead?

With the following tips, you can check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard drive to see if it's about to fail or has already failed.

Step 1: Press the Windows+X keys and select "Command Prompt (Admin)."

Step 2: Type wmic diskdrive get status, and then press Enter.

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Grammar explanation:

• Status “OK”: Your hard drive is working normally. • Status “Bad,” “Warning,” or “Unknown”: Your hard drive has issues that may lead to failure.

If your hard drive is damaged, you won't be able to run Windows at all, or it might not recognize the drive even if it starts up normally. In addition to running the CMD commands, try some additional methods to check for hard drive health. Here are some tutorials that can help you dig deeper into the status of your disk:

After checking your disk status, you might have two questions. You can check here for the answers:

What is the best way to dispose of an old hard drive?

A disk that's about to fail is in a state of imminent failure. So, protect your data. That's step one.

Step 1: Hard drive not accessible? Recover your data.

It is quite common to lose data or have files corrupted due to hard drive failure. You should first back up any existing data and immediately attempt to recover lost files from the failed hard drive.

If you don't have a backup of your hard drive data, you can use a reliable data recovery software like Data Recovery Wizard to help. It can recover your data in almost any situation – be it a failing hard drive or a logical issue.

Supports data recovery from the following problematic hard drives:

• The hard drive has turned into RAW format and cannot be accessed.
• The hard drive is unformatted with errors present.
• The hard drive is damaged and cannot be read.

Tutorial: Recover Data from an Unreadable Hard Drive with Data Recovery Wizard

The scanning process might take longer than usual because the disk being scanned is failing and may contain bad sectors or other errors. Please be patient while the software scans and locates all your data.

Step 1: Scan the hard drive partitions

Select the hard drive where you lost or deleted the files. Click “Scan” to have the data recovery software scan all lost data and files on the selected drive.

Step 2: Check the results

After the scan is complete, you can use the “Filter” option or click on “Search for files or folders” to look for lost files on the hard drive.

Step 3: Recover Lost Hard Drive Data

Select the files you need from the lost partition, and then click “Recover” to save them to another location.

Step Two: Is the hard drive running slowly but still working? Back up your data.

There are many ways to back up a failed hard drive. Free backup software is a popular option for home users and small businesses, offering most features to allow users to back up disks/partitions, files, and systems for free.

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Step 3: If the hard disk is damaged or has too many bad sectors, replace it with a new one.

When your hard drive has too many bad sectors and even data recovery software can't scan it quickly, you need to replace it with a new one to prevent further data loss.

To clone a failed hard drive with all its data to an external or new hard drive, you can use another tool called AOMEI Backupper Disk Copy.

Step 4: Repair the damaged hard drive

After saving all essential files and data to a secure storage device, your next step is to look for possible ways to revive the failed hard drive. Try each of the troubleshooting methods below one by one.

Method 1: Replace the power cord and SATA cable, and enable ATA/SATA in BIOS

You need to reconnect the hard drive to the computer and enable ATA/SATA in the BIOS to check if it's functioning properly.

1. Turn off the computer and disconnect the hard drive's data cable properly. 2. Reconnect the hard drive's data cable and power cable. 3. Restart the computer and press F2 to enter BIOS. 4. In the settings, refer to your system documentation to check if the undetected hard drive is disabled in the system configuration. 5. If the hard drive is disabled, enable it in the system settings. 6. Restart the computer and check if your hard drive appears in "File Explorer."

Then restart your computer, and Windows should automatically reinstall the drivers for your hard disk. If it doesn't, proceed to the next step.

Method 2: Update the Hard Drive Drivers

Click the "Start" button, type Device Manager in the search box, and press Enter. In Device Manager, expand categories to find your hard drive, right-click it, and then click Update Driver.

1. Choose Search automatically for updated driver software.
2. If Windows can't find a new driver for your hard drive, check the manufacturer's website for the latest drivers.
3. If the above steps don't work, try reinstalling the driver: Open Device Manager. Right-click your hard drive and select “Roll Back Driver” or “Uninstall.”

4. Restart your computer, and Windows will automatically reinstall the drivers for your hard disk.

Method 3: Check and Test If Bad Sectors Are Taking Up Disk Space

You can run tools Partition Master Free on your computer and use its Surface Test feature to check the number of bad sectors on the disk. According to a survey, your hard drive might have a slow speed issue when the bad sectors exceed 20%.

Method 4: Repair the Hard Drive Under Warranty

Once bad sectors exceed 50%, it is on its deathbed and can no longer function normally.

Your best option would be to have the hard drive serviced under warranty at an Apple Service Center.