Hard Disk drives are mechanical devices that can develop faults with their internal components. Any moving part failure within a hard disk drive is classified as a mechanical fault. Mechanical parts that commonly fail include the read and write head assembly and the spindle motor bearing. At some point in a drive's life, if another fault type does not claim it first, every hard drive will develop a failure that is classified as being mechanical in nature.
When a mechanical hard disk failure strikes, professional data recovery services are often the only solution for retrieving your lost data.
Identifying a mechanical fault is normally a relatively simple task, a drive that has developed this kind of fault will start to display one of the following symptoms:
A drive with head failure will normally either:
A drive with a seized or partially seized motor bearing will:
Motor failures often occur following an impact, either the drive being hit or dropped whilst in operation. Leakage of the lubricant from a motor bearing assembly can also cause the assembly to fail in rare cases.
More information about head faults and motor bearing faults can be found using the links below: