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Hard Disk Drive Failure

A hard disk drive is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on rapidly rotating disks with magnetic surfaces called hard disk platters. The read-write heads of the hard disk drive are used to record and retrieve the data stored on the hard disk as the platter rotates at a very high speed. Hard disk drives operate under extreme stress and will eventually fail due to general wear and tear accrued through age or some form of malfunction or failure.

The chances of failure of a hard drive therefore increase greatly over time and ironically the chances are greatly increased as hard disk drives improve and develop. The phenomenon of hard disk failure is increasing; as we enlarge the read and write speed. Today we have the latest hard disk rotating at 15,000 rpm, this generates massive centrifugal force, a single adverse cause in the course of normal operation can cause severe hard disk failure.

Hard disk drive failures can be generally classified in two categories. The first category is where there is something physically wrong with the hard drive itself, the second is where there is nothing physically wrong with the drive itself but for one reason or another the information stored on the hard disk drive has become corrupted.

The following lists the main causes of hard drive failure:

• Firmware corruption
• Electronic failure & circuit board malfunction
• Logical errors
• Human errors

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