Common Hard Drive Issues and How to Fix Them

corrupt hard drive, full hard drive, hard drive, Ophtek, overheated hard drive, unknown hard drive fault, , , , ,
25
May 2021

A healthy hard drive will keep your data safe and allow you to remain productive. But what happens when your hard drive fails?

It’s important that you know what to do when your hard drive fails. After all, you may be working to a tight deadline on a project. Or you may have data saved to your hard drive which hasn’t been backed up elsewhere. Whatever the scenario, the result is the same: you need that hard drive back. While many of these issues are technical and complex, there are also hard drive issues that you can remedy yourself.

Naturally, you won’t know what these are without a little education, so that’s where we step in. And, today, we’re going to look at common hard drive issues and how to fix them.

How to Save Your Hard Drive

If your hard drive has failed, then don’t panic. There’s a good chance that you can carry out a simple repair in the following scenarios:

  • Corrupted Hard Drive: You’ll know if you have a corrupted hard drive as your PC will tell you in the boot process. And it won’t let you go any further. A corrupted hard drive can occur for many reasons, such as malware attacks and files being deleted, but fixing this isn’t always rocket science. All you have to do is run a ‘system diagnostics’ check. Once your system starts trying to boot up you will need to press the F2 key (this can vary between different manufacturers) and then select the system diagnostics option. This will run a series of tests and try to fix any existing issues.
  • Full Hard Drive: PCs may have hard drives that can hold substantial amounts of data these days, but this doesn’t mean we don’t push them to their limit. And it’s very easy for a hard drive to quickly fill up. When this happens you’ll find that your PC runs slowly and will be unable to perform certain operations. In these instances you will need to either delete files you no longer need (or transfer them to a storage drive) and uninstall any unnecessary applications.
  • Overheated Hard Drive: If a PC is working too hard then it is going to generate heat. Usually, this can be controlled by the internal fan system. But, sometimes, this isn’t enough due to other factors. Blocked air vents, for example, prevent the internal fans from having air to cool and pass around the hard drive. And a build up of dust can also lead to components becoming insulated and generating excess heat. Therefore, always check that your PCs air vents are clear and that dust is not allowed to build up around the vents.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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How Reliable is your Hard Drive?
How Reliable is your Hard Drive?

The Best Ways to Free Up Space on Your Hard Drive

archive, ccleaner, Cloud Storage, disk cleanup, hard drive, Ophtek, uninstall, , , , ,
21
Jan 2020

How Reliable is your Hard Drive?

All hard drives have a limit in terms of space. And this limit can soon be reached. But there are a number of simple ways to free up space.

A hard drive which is full can cause you a number of problems. Speed is the most obvious issue, but the chances of your PC freezing and crashing is also increased. And all of these scenarios are ones that can put a drain on your productivity. Therefore, you need to ensure that you have enough space on your hard drive.

You could expand your storage space, but this can be costly and isn’t always required. Instead, you can restore your PC’s productivity by following our steps to free up space.

Maximizing the Capacity of Your Hard Drive

To start freeing up space on your hard drive you need to make sure you follow these best practices:

  • Disk Cleanup: The simplest way to start maximizing space on your hard drive is with the Disk Cleanup application. This maintenance utility is bundled with Windows and carries out a quick evaluation of your hard drive. Files that are deemed necessary are kept, but there’s also an option to delete unnecessary files. 
  • Uninstall Apps You No Longer Use: A large number of apps will be installed on a PC over the course of its lifetime. But, due to time constraints, these aren’t always uninstalled when they’re no longer required. And this can take up a lot of disk space. So, you need to regularly visit the ‘Uninstall or Change a Program’ section of your Control Panel. Here you can analyze which programs are no longer required and remove them. 
  • Minimize Your System Restore Space: It’s likely that you will have used the System Restore app more than once to fix a system issue. But, over time, all the snapshots of your system can start to take up large amounts of space. Thankfully, you can restrict the amount of space used to store these snapshots. By minimizing the maximum Disk Space Usage you can save space on your hard drive. Just remember that this will also minimize the number of restore points you can access.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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