How to Repair a Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting
How to Repair a Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting – Usually, when something goes wrong with your Hard Drive, the go-to solution is to format it. This formatting causes the hard drive to erase everything on the hard drive. You lose every data and information stored on the hard drive.
This article explains how to repair a corrupted Hard Disk without formatting. In other words, steps to repair a corrupt hard disk without losing the data.
Note: An error prompt may come up on your screen asking if you want to format the corrupt drive when you run the hard drive. Do not confirm the prompt. Instead, click on cancel and exist immediately to avoid permanent loss of data.
Causes Of Hard Drive Corruption
When a drive is formatted with a file system such as NTFS, FAT16/32, exFAT, etc., it generates a table where file records are conserved. NTFS develops a Master File Table (MFT) while FAT file systems reserve these records in the File Allocation Table (FAT). After format, every file you cut/copy/paste enters a record in the table.
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These file records include the physical address of the file on the hard drive along with other file details such as file format, creation date, modification date, size, etc.
So when a drive is connected to the system, the OS reads the file system’s table and expresses the contained files and folders along with the details retrieved from the table. When this table is wrecked, the OS can’t interpret the file system and thus, express the drive as RAW.
Recovering Data From Corrupted Hard Drive
If you have significant data on the corrupted hard drive, you should endeavor to recover your lost data with professional data recovery software at the very advent.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can access and restore files from the corrupt hard disk and external hard drive quickly to ensure data security.
Now simply download this trustworthy data recovery software and follow the steps below to regain data from the corrupted hard drive.
1. Scan the Hard Drive Partition
Select the drive on your hard disk where you lost or deleted files. Click “Scan” and let EaseUS data recovery software scan all lost data and files on the selected hard drive.
2. Check the Results
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When the scan completes, you can apply the “Filter” feature or click the “Search files or folders” button to find the lost files on the hard drive.
3. Restore the Lost Hard Drive Data
Select wanted files that you lost on the drive and click “Recover” to save them.
Ways to Repair an Already Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting it
Whether it is an internal hard disk or an external hard drive, you can find solutions to repair a corrupted hard disk. The most direct way to fix a corrupt hard disk is formatting the HDD, which will cause data loss. In this post, we will explain 5 practical ways to fix a corrupted hard drive without formatting.
1. Check and Repair Disk To Fix Corrupted Hard Drive With Antivirus Software
Viruses and malware can cause hard drive corruption. Get rid of them by connecting the hard drive to a Windows PC and using a reliable antivirus/malware tool to scan the drive or the system. Windows Defender or any other antivirus is a good choice for this
Below is the process of using the Norton antivirus:
- Download and launch Norton Power Eraser. If a new version is available, Norton Power Eraser will check and download it automatically.
- In the “Norton Power Eraser” window, click the “Scan for Risks” icon.
- Be patient while the process finishes up.
- After successfully removing the risk, click “Finish”.
2. Run SFC Scan
Other times, damaged or missing Windows system files may cause the drive to break down. The SFC scan helps to fix this by scanning the system file authenticity and replacing damaged or corrupted system files with a cached copy stored within the system.
Run the SFC scan by launching Command Prompt window and type in sfc/scannow
If the drive is external, type sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=c:\windowsReplace letter c: with your hard drive letter. It could be “e” or “g” or any other letter.
Now, wait for the scan to be completed and then restart your system. Finally, check if you can access the drive without trouble now.
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3. Use a Data Recovery Tool
It’s quite possible that the above steps fail to repair the corrupt hard drive. Sometimes, the corruption is severe, and the methods mentioned above can only fix a few minor drive corruption issues.
Nonetheless, a data recovery software like the Remo Hard drive Recovery tool Standard can promptly restore files from harshly corrupt and formatted hard drives or deleted partitions. While Windows may not comprehend a corrupt hard drive as functional, this software natively supports recovery from a corrupt (RAW) hard drive.
4. Using CMD (Command Prompt)
This is another type of scan you can run called CHKDSK scan to repair the corrupted hard drive without formatting.
CHKDSK command prompt inspects the file system and file system metadata of a volume for plausible and physical errors. If used without parameters, CHKDSK displays only the volume’s status and does not fix any errors. If used with the /f, /r, /x, or /b parameters, it fixes errors on the volume.
- The “/f” parameter tells CHKDSK to fix any errors it discovers.
- The “/r” tells it to find the bad sectors on the drive and recover coherent information.
- And the “/x” forces the drive to dismount before the process commences.
Follow the procedure below:
- Next to the Windows Start menu, in the “Search Windows” box, type cmd.
- On the search result, right-click on the “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator”.
- Type the command: chkdsk E: /f /r /x. Here you should replace E with your drive letter.
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