A hard disk or hard drive is an electro-mechanical data storage device. Sometimes, the hard drive can be corrupted because of file system errors that make that hard drive raw. The data present in the hard drive can easily be recovered without formatting. Formatting the hard drive can cause permanent data loss, but don’t worry we can recover data without formatting.
Data can be corrupted due to various reasons, for example, sudden system shutdown, issues of the software or hardware, or when there is damage to the system physically. Simply, we will talk about the reasons behind the corruption of the Hard drive, then we will move towards the steps taken to solve this issue that is, to recover hard drive without formatting. This will prevent the loss of user’s data.In simple few steps, we will analyze the problem and then find some solution. At the end of the article we will try to conclude in a single paragraph. So, don’t worry and try to keep your concentration on the steps below.
What are the main causes of hard drive corruption?
Whenever a hard drive gets formatted with a file system such as NTFs, FAT16/32, etc. A table is created where the records of the files are stored. Here NTFS make Master file Table, while the FAT file is there to store these records in FAT that is File allocation table. Now what these records have is that they contain the physical address of the file on the hard drive along with other details for the example File format, date of creation, date of modification and size, etc.
Read Also: Are New Regulations the Key to Better Data Privacy?
Whenever we connect a drive with the system the operating system ( OS) reads and processes the file system table and shows the present files and folders with the details got from the table. Sometimes this table gets damaged, the operating system is not able to recognize the file system because of this drive shows RAW.
Sometimes files can also be corrupted because of software bugs. Here file corruption is limited to the file accessed by the buggy software.
Hard drive can also be corrupted because of the viruses, most of the viruses are not programmed to corrupt the data while few are programmed to damage the hard drive, a good antivirus can be sufficient here.
Yet another reason for the corruption of hardware is that manufacturers fault, the largest and the most reputed manufacturers make faulty hard drives, which need a firmware update in order to work properly. User must check online if there is an update available or not.
Lastly, the hard drive can be corrupted because of poor operating conditions. For example, excessive heat, high humidity or electrical damages help in the corruption of hardware or hard drive.
How to recover a hard drive without formatting:
There are few steps in order to recover the hard drive without formatting the data. These are simple and easy steps.
1, Scan for viruses:
- Try to scan your computer with the help of windows defender which is present in all recent versions of Windows operating systems. There is no need to use any paid antivirus protection program. The windows defender will do the job easily.
- Now to scan, you must type windows security in the taskbar and press enter.
- Click on virus threat protection, and click on the scan option.
- Click on the full scan option and scan all the running programs on your computer.
- This is the first and the easiest method to recover the hard drive without formatting the data. If it doesn’t work then don’t worry we have other methods which can help you.
2, Use check disk to recover hard drive without formatting:
Check a disk is a tool that is capable of checking and correcting disk errors. It checks the surface of the disk for bad sectors and marks them appropriately. When you have checked with the help of the disk check tool you will be able to recover the hard drive without formatting the data.
- In the search bar section type CMD and select the option of run as administrator.
- Now enter the command chkdsk and press enter. This may take few hours.
- This will check the entire surface and recover the hard drive without formatting the data.
- This will be helpful to recover hard drive without formatting the data.
3, Replace corrupted files with system file checker:
The SFC is basically a command tool which is used for repairing system files in windows installation. It helps to recover hard drive without formatting the data easily.
- First of all, Type CMD in the search engine on the task bar and select the option of run as administrator.
- Enter sfc/ scan nowand then wait.
- Wait for it to finish, this process usually takes about an hour.
- This will help you to recover hard drive without formatting the data easily.
- We are hopeful that this method will help you to recover hard drive without formatting the data. If not then follow last step.
4, Recover hard drive with data recovery software:
If you still cannot recover hard drive data without formatting the data then use of data recovery software would make it easier. Use wondershare recoverit as to recover your data without formatting.
- First of all download and install wondershare recover it software which is helpful for data recovery and connect it to the external hard drive to recover data. It’s available for Windows & MacOS
- Now launch the downloaded software and look for the lost data.
- Wait some time for the files to recover and select the required files and click on the recover button.
- Select on ok button.
Video tutorial about recovering hard drive without formatting.
Conclusion:
In this article we talked about hard drive, its importance and the problems faced by most of the users. We talked about the reasons for the occurrence of the hard drive corruption. Then we gave 4 simple steps along with pictures to clearly illustrate the process that how to recover HDD without formatting the data easily.
First method was scanning for viruses, by this method we can recover data drive without formatting the data very much easily. Then we explained another method which was To use check disk for recovering the data. This was the second step or the second easier method to get to external hard drive without formatting the data. Thirdly we tried to recover files of the hard drive with the help of system file checker.
This method was also successful in order to recover HDD / SSD without formatting the data. Lastly we used the method of recovering files with data recovery software. We mentioned few steps through which the data can easily be recovered without formatting.
