What failed — and what it means for your data

Every failure is different. Find yours to see what’s happening inside the device, what not to do, how the lab recovers it, and an honest read on your odds.

Hard drive & SSD failures

Mechanical failure · Hard drives Clicking Hard Drive A clicking or ticking hard drive usually means the read/write heads can't read the platters, and every power-on risks more damage. Mechanical failure · Hard drives Beeping Hard Drive A beeping or buzzing hard drive is the spindle motor trying and failing to spin the platters, usually because the heads are stuck to the surface or the motor has seized. Electrical failure · Hard drives Hard Drive Not Spinning A hard drive that's dead silent, with no spin, no vibration, and no detection, usually has an electrical problem, and the platters holding your data are often untouched. Mechanical failure · Platter damage Head Crash A head crash happens when a read/write head touches the spinning platter, and it often shows up as grinding, scraping, or sudden loud clicking. Physical damage · Drives & laptops Dropped Hard Drive A dropped hard drive, external drive, or laptop can have damage you can't see, from knocked or stuck heads to a damaged motor or shifted platters. Liquid damage · Drives, laptops & phones Water Damage Water, coffee, and other liquids damage devices through short circuits and corrosion, and corrosion keeps working after a device looks dry. Heat & smoke damage · Drives, laptops & phones Fire Damage A device that's been through a fire can look ruined while the storage inside is still readable, because hard drive platters and memory chips are often better protected than the case and board around them. Electrical failure · Hard drives PCB & Electrical Failure A power surge, a wrong power adapter, or a failed component can kill the circuit board on the underside of a hard drive. Firmware failure · Hard drives & SSDs Firmware Failure Every hard drive and SSD runs its own internal firmware, and when that software gets corrupted the drive can spin or power on normally yet show up with a strange name, 0 GB capacity, or not at all. Controller failure · SSDs & NVMe SSD Controller Failure When an SSD's controller fails, the drive usually vanishes without warning: gone from File Explorer, gone from Disk Management, often gone from the BIOS too. Media degradation · Hard drives Bad Sectors & Degrading Media A drive with bad sectors is still working, but it's wearing out.

iPhone & Android failures

Electrical failure · Phones Phone Logic Board Failure A phone that won't power on, won't charge, or gets warm without ever starting usually has a fault on its logic board, the main circuit board that also holds your data. Liquid damage · Phones Phone Water Damage A phone that's been in a toilet, a pool, the ocean, or a spilled drink can short out right away or fail days later as corrosion spreads across its logic board. Boot failure · Phones Phone Boot Loop A phone stuck on the Apple or manufacturer logo, or restarting over and over, can have a software problem or a hardware fault. Display failure · Phones Broken Phone Screen When a phone still rings, vibrates, or buzzes with notifications but the screen is cracked, black, or won't respond to touch, your data is usually still intact and the problem is getting to it.

RAID & multi-drive failures

Array failure · RAID & NAS RAID Rebuild Failure A RAID rebuild is supposed to restore redundancy after a drive fails, but it puts every remaining drive under heavy load, and a second drive dropping out or a patch of unreadable sectors can take the whole array offline. Controller failure · RAID & servers RAID Controller Failure When a RAID controller dies, is replaced, or loses its configuration, the drives can be perfectly healthy while the array is unreadable, because the controller is what knows how the data is laid out across them. Multiple drive failure · RAID & NAS Multiple Drive Failure When more drives fail than your RAID level can tolerate, the array goes offline because there isn't enough redundancy left to calculate the missing data.

Logical failures & data loss

Logical failure · All drive types Corrupted File System If Windows says the drive is RAW, needs formatting, or that the disk structure is corrupted and unreadable, the file system's index is damaged, but your files are often still there. Accidental format · Hard drives, SSDs & cards Formatted Drive Formatted the wrong drive, or reinstalled your operating system over your files? Whether they can come back depends on the kind of format and the kind of drive. Deleted data · Drives, cards & phones Deleted Files Deleted files and emptied the trash? On a hard drive, memory card, or USB stick, they're often still there until something new overwrites them. Encryption · BitLocker, FileVault & hardware encryption Encrypted Drive Encrypted drives fail just like any other drive, but recovering them has one firm requirement: your password, recovery key, or credentials.

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