Signs of Data Loss
If your hard drive is experience data loss, there are typically signs. Often, these signs come long before a complete loss or failure of the hard drive but many people do not recognize the signs or know what they mean. If you want to have a better chance at data recovery, your best option is to recognize the signs as early as possible and then discontinue use of the computer until you can get the problem repaired.

So what are some of the most common signs that there is a problem with your hard drive and you may be experiencing data loss?

• System blue screen (known as the “blue screen of death” to many in the industry)
• Clicking sound from the hard drive
• Drive not formatted
• System freezes
• Computer reboots
• Drive or devices not found
• Operating system not found

If your hard drive is clicking or grinding, it is a sure sign that you are experiencing some form of data loss. The best thing you can do is turn the computer off and seek the help of a professional data recovery service before you do more damage to the hard drive and the data storage platters.

If you are getting error messages or your system freezes or you get a blue screen, this is another sign. Your error messages might read “drive not formatted” or “operating system not found”. Another sign that your hard drive has failed is frequent reboots of the computer.

Some things that can cause hard drive failure and data loss are a head crash, corrupt firmware on the drive's ROM chip, an electrical problem like a burned chip, blown heads, a bad PCB controller, overwritten servo's, damage to the hard drive's platters and alignment issues from being dropped, jarred or a power surge. Other causes are:

• A virus or Trojan
• Deleted DLLs or system files
• Corrupted file structure or partition
• Power surge or outage
• Memory dump
• New software installation