There is nothing more painful for a computer users computing life than getting a hard drive failure. There is nothing more frustrating than experiencing a hard drive crash one can have in having a computer. When the ability of the computer to read and access data from the hard drive is rendered useless, the computer almost automatically become as useless as the drive. The only known way to restore the data saved on the particular hard drive is when you have the backup of the hard drive and put it in a new drive for the computer.

Basically, a hard drive or hard disk is a huge device of magnetic origin that is encased with rigid platters which allows storing large amounts of data and information. The most common hard disk problem is known as head crash. It happens when the magnetic platter will be etched off by the head of the hard drive rendering the data and the drive to be inoperable. To elaborate, a hard drive failure is more commonly known as a head crash which occurs when a read-write head of a hard drive touches the rotating platter which will then result into a permanent damage to the magnetic surface of the platter. The read-write head are small parts of a disk drive that moves on the disk platter that transforms the magnetic field of the platter into an electric current. A head is normally located on a thin film of air at the surface of the hard disks platter while the topmost layer of the platter is covered with Teflon-like material that serves as lubricant and under that layer is some kind of carbon material. The two layers protect the magnetic layer of the platter from accidental touches of the read-write head.

When a tiny particle of dirt or specs of dust, excessive vibration or dropping of a running drive will cause the head to bounce against the magnetic disk, the force initiated will cause head crash by damaging the protective layer that comes in contact with the head and often damaging the head in the process. After the initial crash of the hard disk, countless number of very fine particles from the destroyed area can transfer onto other parts and can cause more head crashes when the heads move upon those specs. Because of that, a very significant damage and data corruption and loss will render the hard drive useless and the files irrecoverable.

When this happens, there is not much known solution on how to recover the data on the damaged drive other than recovering it from a back up drive and installing it all back into a new hard drive. The best solution would be to prevent this from happening ever to your computer by being careful and handling the hard drives well. A back up for all the data is a good move and will surely save your computer life if ever this problem occurs to you. It is better to be prepared than to grope up in darkness on how to fix and recover the loss of both the data and the drive.