How to Recover Crashed Hard Drive Data – Get Solution to the Query
Hard drive crashes are a commonplace yet dreadful incident among computer users. Whether you use a desktop, laptop, or netbook/notebook, it has an inbuilt (internal) hard drive. This is the main storage device of a computer, so the crashing of the internal hard drive means big trouble for the user. That is why we often receive queries like ‘hard drive crashed’ and ‘how to recover data’ on the forums’ websites.
Since data recovery from crashed external hard drives is not possible manually, you need a trusted and secure tool that can be used to recover data from a crashed hard disk drive.
In this post, we will tell you how to recover files if your internal hard drive crashes. We will also discuss the reasons why hard drives crash. Continue reading:
What is the Meaning of Hard Disk Crashed?
If you do not know the meaning of hard drive crash or hard drive failure, here is the definition. By a hard drive crash, we refer to the situation where a hard disk fails to read its data. In other words, hard drive data gets corrupted, and the system may fail to detect it. Even if it can detect, the files remain inaccessible.
There are ways to tell if a hard drive has been corrupted. The same error occurred in the external and internal hard disks. The reason for the internal and external hard drive crashes is the same. The symptoms of a crashed hard disk and a solution for an external hard drive crashed: how to recover data from a crashed hard disk drive are listed below:
Symptoms to Identify Hard Drive Crashed or Not
With these signs, users will be able to understand whether their system’s hard disk has crashed or not. The symptoms are the same for both internal hard disks and external hard drives.
- System Unable to Boot: If your system BIOS is unable to boot, there is a strong possibility that the internal hard drive has crashed.
- Inaccessible Files: If the hard disk of a system crashes, no files and folders stored in that disk can be accessed.
- Ticking Sound: A crashed hard drive will produce a clicking/ticking sound while in operation. Same sound for an externally crashed hard disk drive.
- Undetectable Hard Drive: A system will fail to recognize a crashed hard disk. Despite being connected, it will not detect the crashed / corrupt hard drive.
If any of these symptoms occur, there is a possibility that your hard disk crashed. Now, before discussing internal hard drive crashes how to recover data. Please let us know the common causes that lead to hard drive crashes.
Also Read: External Hard Drive Not Responding
Why Hard Drive Crash? Know the Reasons
Various reasons can be responsible for the failure of internal and external hard disks. In a broad sense, the causes are divided into two categories: physical damage and logical damage. Let us explain the main reasons why the external hard drive crashed how to recover data:
Physical Level Damage Led to Hard Disk Crash
Physical-level damage means any damage caused to the physical structure of an HDD. Physical damage can happen to an external or internal hard disk. Typically, moisture, heat, and shock are the three primary enemies of HDDs, which can cause hard drive crashes.
- Moisture: For any electronic gadget, moisture is a big no. Water or excess moisture can severely damage your hard drive, resulting in hard drive crash errors. After that, the user searched for the hard drive solution. How do I recover data?
- Heat: The same warning applies to the heat as well. Excess heat can affect a hard drive and cause it to crash.
- Shock: The hard drives used in our computers are not shockproof. HDDs contain platters, and any type of shock, fall, or jerk can damage these platters. As a result, the read/write capability of a hard disk is lost, and it fails to access its storage. As a result, the user cannot access files and folders from a crashed hard disk.
Logical Level Corruption Can Result in Hard Drive Crash
These causes occur at the logical level of an HDD. Some of the main reasons for logical-level corruption are listed below:
- Virus: A virus or malware can be extremely dangerous to a hard disk. These can attack a hard drive and make it inaccessible in no time.
- Human Error: It is a sad yet true fact that users themselves are sometimes responsible for the crashing of internal or external hard disks. If someone alters or deletes a system file, hard drives will not work. In this situation, the user needs a solution for recovering data from a crashed hard drive.
- System File Corruption: Sometimes, system files get corrupted due to known and unknown reasons. In extreme cases, it can cause a drive to crash.
- Power Failure: If the power supply is unstable and the hard drive experiences regular power surges, it can negatively affect the hard drive and result in a hard drive crash error.
How to Recover Data from Crashed Internal Hard Disk: Step-by-Step Guide
In this section, we will discuss the ways to recover data from crashed internal hard disk. The following solutions will help you safely recover data, whether your issue is logical or physical.
1. Use a Secondary Computer or External Enclosure
In case your OS is not bootable then you could remove the internal hard drive and connect it to another system by using:
- A SATA-to-USB adapter, or
- An external hard drive enclosure.
When connected, verify if the secondary computer recognizes the drive. Next, copy all the important files to the desired location if they appear. This is the easiest manual option to recover data from hard disk drive crash when there is a minor issue with the drive.
2. Boot from a Live USB (for Non-Detectable Drives)
If the drive does not work even after being plugged in, you can try booting the computer with a Linux Live USB (such as Ubuntu).
Here are the Steps to perform:
- Create a bootable USB drive using tools like Rufus.
- Plug in the USB, and boot from it.
- Launch the File Manager on Linux.
- Try to find your files and copy them into an external drive.
This approach may recover from corrupt file systems / partial crashes.
3. Run CHKDSK or Disk Utility
If the drive is readable but behaving strangely, try the built-in repair tools:
For Windows:
- Begin by opening the Command Prompt as an Administrator and running it.
- chkdsk X: /f /r
- (Replace “X” with your drive letter.)
For macOS:
- Use Disk Utility > First Aid to try and repair disk errors.
These commands perform actions to correct logical problems, read bad sectors, and corrupted tables — these fixes can be used for basic crashed hard drive recovery.
4. How to Recover Crashed Hard Drive with 99% Accuracy?
If manual solutions are not effective or the damage is severe, specialist software is the best option. Here, SysTools Hard Disk Recovery is a professional utility specifically developed to recover a crashed Hard Drive.
The following are the key characteristics:
- Recovers data from internal and external hard drives.
- Contemporary file systems are supported, including FAT, NTFS, and exFAT.
- Retrieves the data that is deleted permanently, formatted, or lost.
- Preview files to be recovered before saving.
- Supports all the latest versions of Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7.
Perform the simple steps listed here:
- Download the aforementioned Software and launch it on your Windows-installed machine.
- Next, select the Drive and click ‘Scan’.

- After that, preview all retrieved files and folders.

- Now, you can save all recovered files and folders to the desired location.

Why Choose Tool to Recover Data from a Crashed Hard Disk Drive?
Due to these features, the Cites application is preferred over hard drive crashes for recovering data. The Windows data recovery tool is used for both internal and external hard drives that have crashed.
- Restore permanently deleted data from both internal and external crashed hard disks.
- Loads and previews all data located in a crashed hard drive
- Retrieves Files from an external hard drive that won’t boot
Preventing Future Data Loss
Once you have successfully recovered your data, it is important to take steps to prevent future data loss. Steps for data protection include:
- Back up Regularly: The best method to protect your data is to back it up regularly. Use an external hard drive, cloud storage, or both to store copies of your important files. To minimize the risk of losing important data, consider using an automated backup solution that schedules regular backups.
- Use a RAID Array: RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) configurations provide redundancy, meaning that if one drive fails, your data is safe on the other drives. RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 5 (striping with parity) are common options for providing data redundancy.
- Monitor Disk Health: Utilize disk monitoring tools like CrystalDiskInfo and HDDScan to monitor the health of your hard drives. These tools will alert you when your drive shows signs of wear so you can take action before it fails.
- Avoid Physical Damage: Handle your hard drives with care. Do not place or expose to extreme temperatures. Proper ventilation and a stable environment will help extend the life of your hard drive.
Conclusion
For the well-being of our computer system, you have to resolve how to recover data from a crashed hard drive. Crashing of the system’s storage device, i.e., the hard drive, will make your system non-functional. However, the suggested tool is sufficient for retrieving data from a severely damaged hard drive. Although it cannot repair the crashed HDD, it can help you avoid losing important data. Also, be sure to take precautions against hard drive crashes in the future.