Why the hard drive stops working. The hard drive does not start. If the "pancakes" rotate

According to service center specialists, the most common reason why a laptop does not see hDD, is an physical damage  Winchester itself. The fact is that it is a rather fragile structure that is not protected from mechanical influences.

It is enough to drop the laptop even from a small height, as the hard drive breaks. At the same time, the screen matrix, motherboard and keyboard can continue to function normally.

Hard drives are one of the components of the computer that appeared in lately, although not because of a change in its composition. Capacity over the past decades hard drive  increased exponentially due to several improvements in information storage methods, which significantly increased the density of information that can be stored on hard drives. However, since the hardware has not changed much, it still suffers from the rather short life of magnetic storage devices.

Most hard drives  have an average life of 4 years. This does not mean that your data will go “poof” after exactly 4 years, but after this threshold hard disks  begin to accumulate failures. Drives begin to suffer from constant wear on their backs, resulting in damaged sectors, which usually indicates that it is time to get a new storage device.

Not only falling, but also strong vibration can cause malfunctions. For example - shaking while riding a train or train, with a sharp braking of a car.

Ideally, it would be nice to check the operability of the device by replacing it with a known working analog. Unfortunately, at home such an opportunity is extremely rare.

Restore laptop HDD program Victoria

There are also several factors that affect the life span of a hard drive. There may be a problem with the factory that causes your hard drive to die much earlier than necessary, in which case you should contact your supplier, as warranties usually cover for this kind of failure.

There is also always the possibility of an accidental failure throughout the life of the hard drive, which is usually caused by a problem software, which can occur due to a user error, malware infection, and damaged files, which can lead to crashes such as the scary " blue screen  of death". However, as your hard drive gets older, the risk of failure begins to increase exponentially due to the accumulation of wear caused by constant rotation of components, heating, etc.

The good news is that nowadays hard drives are produced in huge numbers and their market value is constantly decreasing. Therefore, the acquisition of a new hard drive will not breach your budget. And technically, replacing a disk in a laptop is quite affordable for a user with average technical skills.

If the laptop does not see the hard drive, this may be due to overheating of the equipment. If the cooling air intake channels are blocked if the laptop is not installed on a soft surface. Or if you use the computer while lying on the couch, holding the laptop on your lap - all this can lead to a violation in the cooling system.

However, this creates a headache. You see, your hard drive is designed to give you clear clues about your impending death, usually a few months before it really does. The key understands these warnings, so you may be prepared to back up all this valuable information.

But how do I know if my hard drive is dying?

There are several ways to find out if your hard drive is close to an impending failure. Your hard drive will give you several visual and audible signals, for example, when you try to read a bad sector or its internal failure prevention system to warn you.

Overheating of a laptop is often caused by dust accumulated inside the case. Particularly fast pollution occurs in dusty rooms or when using a laptop in open air, in parks, in the country, and so on.

If you have to use a computer in extreme conditions - it is advisable to purchase the device in a special design protected from dust and shock. Although, such devices are significantly more expensive than conventional samples.

Read on to find five tips that your hard drive will die. Bad sectors are essentially parts of the surface of the hard drive that have become unable to support data. This is usually one of the most difficult to detect signs of a hard disk failure, because they do not bother you much because operating systems are designed to automatically mask them so as not to interrupt its operation.

However, you may encounter bad sectors, which can lead to malfunctions, such as crashes, and your operating system, planning to automatically check with a Scandinavian the next time you start your computer. If this happens at some frequency, then it's time to think about replacing the hard drive. Data defragmentation can also detect bad sectors. Now windows will check for availability bad sectors  and try to restore them. However, sometimes they cannot be restored, that is, they will remain defective forever.


When overheating, you need to turn off the computer, let it cool and try to turn it on again. If the malfunction repeats, then it is not a matter of cooling.

Settings Issues

Often, events such as a sudden power outage lead to significant malfunctions. In this case, the operating system terminates in abnormal mode and this leads to a failure in the settings of not only Windows, but also the BIOS.

If this happens in many sectors, then it's time to buy another hard drive. You can also follow these steps with command lineas shown below. You can usually detect this sound by placing your ear directly above the location of the hard drive, but it is usually loud enough for an attentive user to detect it in a quiet environment.

If this happens as shown in the video, then usually it is too late, and some data may already be lost. If this happens to you, consider backing up all the data that you can do immediately. Other sounds, such as a squeal or a grinding sound, may mean that one of the plates or other components, such as the motor that rotates the plates, starts to fail, which can lead to a catastrophic failure of all equipment.

  • If the laptop does not see the hard drive, most likely the operating system will not boot.
  • If the computer tries to start, tests will appear, it is possible to enter the CMOS settings, you must first see if the device is detected by the BIOS. It is possible that by chance it was disabled at the BIOS level. Then just need to change off to on.
  • The reason for invisibility can also be its incorrect configuration in the BIOS.

If this does not help, try to reset the BIOS, then restart the computer. If the problem was with Bios, the hard drive will appear and Windows will start loading.

Much can cause corrupted filessuch as malware infection, problems encountered while saving the file, closing operating system  or incorrect shutdown of the computer, etc. However, if the file that was saved normally without any error messages worked fine before that, and you checked your computer for viruses using good antivirus software, and it is still corrupted, this may be a sign that your hard drive has already accumulated a lot of serious damage, and your files are already at risk.

With deeper violations, reinstalling the operating system may help. In modern models, sometimes there is the option of returning the system to the factory settings. If not, use the installation DVD or bootable USB flash drive.

A bootable USB flash drive can also be created in advance using a special function and stored just in case, because the laptop is supplied boot disk  Windows may not be included.

If the "pancakes" do not rotate

At the moment, you cannot do much to try to save all the data that you can save. Of course, this can be caused by several different things, so if you suspect problems with hard drivealways check the disk. The best advice in any situation when in doubt is backing up.

It periodically warns you about this, and some users, annoyed by the message, turn it off using the checkbox that comes with the message, and ultimately forget about the warning, passing it with a false positive result, since the hard drive continues to work normally in the following months .


Sometimes the cause of the invisibility of the hard drive can be itself in the device manager. In this case, you need to disconnect the hard drive connector. Then turn on the laptop and clear the device manager of all memory disks. Then reconnect the hard drive and wait until the system itself detects it. After that, you just need to confirm the connection of the new equipment. If after disconnecting and connecting the device was not found, it must be found forcibly by updating the shoe configuration.

You cannot save it in any way, so start creating this backup whenever you can! Slowdown, blue screen of death, random crashes. Although all of these things can have several different reasons, one of them may be a failed hard drive. To exclude other features, follow these steps:

  • Make sure your computer is not infected with malware.
  • If you get the blue screen of death, look what it is trying to tell you.
  • Contact a technician if you cannot understand him.
If the computer is still running slowly, try checking if the computer’s cooling fan is working properly and if any components are overheating. If you still get any of these problems, then there is a decent chance that your hard drive might crash and need to be replaced as soon as possible, as it usually dies.

Internal faults

The disappearance of the hard drive from the laptop system may be due to malfunctions motherboard. Most of all, this is due to problems with the south or north bridge. A common malfunction of controllers is shorting and burning of contacts. These problems can be detected by disassembling the laptop and carefully inspecting the motherboard.

Trying to use the software to try to keep the hard drive from an inevitable failure, like giving chicken soup to someone with cancer at its final stage, this may help a little, but it can only delay the inevitable at best.

In the worst case scenario, the software may put your hard drive in a state of high stress, and it may just be a straw that violates the camel, so whatever you do, always try to do backups data in the first place and remember: this article is intended to be informative, so you will not remain ignorant in such a situation, but nothing can be compared with the help provided by a professional specialist, so contact one if you can!


Such malfunctions at home cannot be fixed. Have to take the computer to a repair shop. Difficulties with laptop repair arise due to their compactness and monoblockness. A laptop cannot be diagnosed and repaired by simply replacing the functional modules, as is usually done in desktop computers. In a laptop, most of the connection is made not by connectors, but by soldering. Therefore, repair involves the use of special appliances and a special tool.

Regardless of whether you use a desktop computer or laptop, at the time of purchase its built-in hard drive is built into your computer. Capacity, rotation speed, interface, and service life vary from disk to disk. In addition, different computer configurations “different” and “users” are not all the same. As a result internal hard  the drive sometimes deteriorated due to poor equipment quality or incorrect operations.

Once your internal hard drive is damaged, you should be crushed, right? We know many cases when users die in order to find out the most effective solution for recovering data from a damaged internal hard drive. Obviously, recovering data from a damaged internal hard drive is a task that is more formidable than returning data from a removable drive. But please stay calm; this is not a problem that cannot be fixed. We have provided solutions for desktop and laptop users to recover data from a damaged internal hard drive.

If nothing is spinning in the hard drive, the heads probably stuck. In this case, do not knock on the laptop, in the hope that sticky heads will stop. Anyway, even if the computer starts working, the malfunction will surely recur soon and then the probability of losing valuable data will already arise. It is better to replace the disk with a new one in time.

You have 2 options for recovering data from a dead hard drive using this failed hard drive data recovery software. Remove the internal hard drive and connect it to another computer. Then download free version software on this computer and get started.

Connect the boot disk that you made to the computer and boot it from this disk to start recovering data from the hard disk. After that we will analyze possible reasonsexplaining why your internal hard drive is damaged or crashed.

Often, a faulty laptop hard drive can recover. This is true when file system crashes, surface defects. If the cause of the failure is the abnormal operation of the mechanical part - the engine, head block, then it is unlikely that the laptop will be able to fix the laptop on its own.

How to cure HDD when file system crashes

The most simple programcapable of recovering a failed hard drive file system  - CHKDSK, present initially in any version of the operating system from Microsoft. To run the utility:

Solution 1 - Get a free data recovery service on your hard drive

Follow the tips below, and we suggest that you do not ask how to repair a damaged internal hard drive the next time you encounter such a problem. Case 1: as we said, you can try to restart the computer immediately after it is damaged. In some cases, people succeed - after the computer, the computer restarts. But this does not mean that your data is not corrupted, we mean that some of your files stored on the internal hard drive may disappear.

  1. Go to the properties of the desired section by right-clicking on it;
  2. Go to the “Service” tab;
  3. Click on the button that prompts you to check;
  4. In the next window, set the parameters by checking the boxes with the checkbox to allow correcting errors automatically.

You can start the application from the command line by entering chkdsk c: / f (if the "C" section is the system one). If you check the system partition, then it will be possible only at restart, which Windows will notify you about.

Therefore, we strongly recommend recovering lost data immediately. Then, backup  of all the important files that you need on your computer, well prepared, since a hard drive crash can occur at any time. Case 2: the hard disk on the hard disk installed inside the computer case is relatively flexible - it can even be removed from the computer case regular users, and it will not damage the data on the disk or computer. Therefore, in this case, if the internal hard drive on the desktop is damaged, you can carefully remove it and then connect it to another computer to recover data from the damaged hard drive.

Restore laptop HDD program Victoria

If the laptop constantly freezes when the OS boots up, the media is probably damaged and it makes sense to immediately turn to the Victoria application to test and restore the hard drive. In the presence of a large number bad sectors  the device may not boot at all, because of which it will not work to cure the device in a running OS. Therefore, you can act as follows:

  1. Create a CD with Victoria for download or a flash drive;
  2. Download the system from it;
  3. Test on bad blocks  HDD;
  4. Get rid of bad sectors in DOS mode.

From under Windows it is hardly possible to cure bad blocks, but when the HDD is damaged, you can test the hard drive in this way.

Launch Victoria in DOS mode

Victoria is free programtherefore, the ISO image of the CD is available on the official website.

From this image, you can create bootable media and restore the hard drive if it is damaged. Further:

  1. Boot the device from bootable media  (if the laptop is new, then necessarily disable Secure Boot in BIOS UEFI);
  2. When the first window Choose menu appears, do not touch anything, wait a couple of seconds.

In the next window, select vcr35r from partition 0 with the arrows on the keyboard (the mouse will not work).

In the next menu, press Enter, highlighting the second item Victoria 3.5 Russian for Notebook.

So you can open Victoria and restore the HDD, if it is damaged, in DOS-mode, booting from the created CD.

How to work with Victoria

In the main program window that opens, you can press F1 to get help or P to select a hard drive.

You can exit the help window by pressing any key. We continue to work:



The most important line here is Reallocated Sector Count at number 5. It speaks of the number of reassigned blocks to sectors of the backup track. Their number is finite and reserve sectors may end. Then there will be nowhere to reassign the bad sectors - information will begin to be lost. Therefore, if the number opposite this line is highlighted in red, then the state of the hard drive is very poor  - it is clearly damaged.

Fix bad sectors

Open the scan menu and configure the necessary settings. To restore a hard drive:



When you select the BB \u003d Advanced REMAP mode, the program writes to a bad sector, and if it succeeds, the sector is removed from the list of bad blocks — it was cured. Otherwise, the diseased sector changes healthy from a special reserve path.

Scan results

During testing, in the upper right window, reading delays for sectors will be displayed. If this parameter is small (from 5 to 50 ms), then the sector is healthy, but if the delay exceeds 200 ms, then these are already bad sectors - the HDD is damaged. The following information will be displayed in the lower right window:

  • bad block numbers if the utility scans the HDD in Ignore Bad Blocks mode;
  • report whether the program managed to fix the block (Remap), if the application is in BB \u003d Advanced REMAP mode.

Caution should be exercised when choosing a reading mode. There is an item "Record (Erase)", which completely removes information sector by sector on the hard drive. To after exiting the hard drive to exit the program, follow these steps:

  • press the X key to go to the Volkov Comander shell;
  • press F10, then “Yes” to exit to DOS;

To exit the mode and further windows boot  It remains to simultaneously press Ctrl + Alt + Delete. In conclusion, we say that victoria program  Although it is quite old, but still it is a very popular application that allows you to effectively restore the laptop hard drive.