Is My Hard Drive About to Go Bad?
There is almost no task that is as stressful or anxiety producing as going through a hard drive crash recovery. A hard drive malfunction is stressful because years’ worth of work or thousands of pictures could vanish in an instant. A loss of data could also represent a significant financial loss or a difficult legal situation if you happen to lose documents that are required for some future court case. Fortunately, there are some simple things that you can do to prevent having the need to recover lost data in the first place.
One of the major components of most hard drives is one or more flat metal discs which are referred to as platters. These platters rotate on a spindle that spins at a very high rate, as high as 15,000 RPMs. The spindle motor relies on ball bearings to minimize the friction that occurs when the platters rotate. Although these ball bearings are designed to endure considerable wear and tear, they will eventually wear out and fail. Once one or more ball bearings have failed the increased amount of friction will heat up the spindle shaft. If the spindle shaft is exposed to enough heat, it will cause the spindle motor to seize and fail. Generally, ball bearings that are beginning to fail will give you audible clues about what is going on inside your drive. The sound could be a grinding or clicking noise.
If your drive has just started to make some unusual noises, you should transfer your data to a new hard drive as soon as possible. In fact, it makes sense to shut down your computer until you are ready to do the transfer. This will minimize any additional wear that would otherwise take place. If all goes well and you noticed the problem in time, you just saved yourself a major headache.
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