Hard-disk Failure - Signs of Hard-disk Failure

Signs of Hard-disk Failure

Hard-drive failure can be catastrophic or gradual. The former typically presents as a drive that can no longer be detected by CMOS setup, or that fails to pass BIOS POST so that the operating system never sees it. Gradual hard-drive failure can be harder to diagnose, because its symptoms, such as corrupted data and slowing down of the PC (caused by gradually failing areas of the hard drive requiring repeated read attempts before successful access), can be caused by many other computer issues, such as malware. A rising number of bad sectors can be a sign of a failing hard drive, but because the hard drive automatically adds them to its own growth defect table, they may not become evident to utilities such as Scandisk unless the utility can catch them before the hard drive's defect management system does, or the backup sectors held in reserve by the internal hard-drive defect management system run out. A cyclical repetitive pattern of seek activity such as rapid or slower seek-to-end noises (click of death) can be indicative of hard drive problems.