(Solved) How to Recover Data from Corrupted Hard Drive

Sometimes, your hard drive, either internal or external, may get corrupted and cannot be recognized or accessed in Windows 11/10/8/7, resulting in data loss. Usually, this is due to power failure, loose connection, improper operation, file system corruption, bad sector, virus attacks, physical damage, and so on.

If you are in this situation, this article will be of great help to you. Scroll down to learn more.

Overview of corrupted hard drive recovery

When using the hard disk, no matter how careful you are, it is relatively inevitable that some failures will occur, resulting in a corrupted hard drive. At this point, you will lose access to your data. You have no choice but to recover data from a corrupted hard drive if you don't want to lose it. In addition, you need to decide if you want to fix the corrupted hard drive or not.

Anyway, this article will show the corresponding methods in the following. So it doesn't matter if you don't know how. To increase the success rate of data recovery, please stop using this drive immediately and don't perform any write operations (e.g. add new data or reformat this disk) that may cause data overwriting, making data recovery difficult.

How to recover files from a corrupted/damaged hard drive

To prevent irreversible data loss, it is recommended that you recover data from damaged hard drive before repairing them. The most effective method is to try AOMEI FastRecovery, a top data recovery tool, with a high recovery success rate and fast speed.

Its advanced scanning methods enable the ability to deal with data loss caused by deleted, corrupted, formatting, system crashes, and more.

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Why Choose AOMEI FastRecovery?

• It has a free edition that can recover data over 500MB.
• Top algorithms - Automatically run Quick Scan and Deep Scan to search for all recoverable files.
• Recover data in more than 1000 file formats, such as images (JPG, PNG, DNG, TIFF, etc.), videos (MP4, MOV, AVI, etc.), documents (DOCX, XLSX, PPT, TXT, etc.), compressed files, websites, etc.
• Recover deleted or lost files while scanning.
• Recover specific files or folders instead of all.
• Filter and preview files during scanning through file name, extension, data type, etc.
• Work perfectly in NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, and ReFS file systems and Windows 11/10/8/7/Server.

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Step 1. Connect the corrupted hard drive to the working PC. Then, click the partition and click Scan.​

Step 2. Next, Quick Scan & Deep Scan will automatically scan all the lost or deleted files on the selected hard drive.

During scanning, you can search or filter specific files by typing its file name, extension, or click the funnel shaped button to specify the data type, date modified, and size below.

For example, to recover deleted Word documents, click Filter > Type and select the Documents data type. Then, input DOCX in the Search for files or folders box. It will list all of the detected Word documents on the drive. Double-click them to preview and check.

Step 3. Select all the files you want to recover and click Recover x files. Then, select a location to store these files and it will retrieve files to the selected folder automatically.

AOMEI FastRecovery still supports torecover deleted files from Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022, etc.

How to fix a corrupted hard drive without formatting

In case of a physical failure of the hard disk (which is usually irreversible), contact a professional hard disk recovery service. On the contrary, you can try the following ways to repair the damaged hard disk, some of these tools are included in your OS without downloading.

▶ Solution 1. Fix disk errors on a corrupted hard drive

Windows offers you the disk check feature to find any disk error and fix what they found on the corrupted disk. If your disk has problems, try it.

Step 1. Start This PC or My Computer. Right-click the corrupted hard drive and select Properties.

Step 2. Then go to Tools on the upper-left side and click Check.

Step 3. Click Scan Drive  to find any error on the disk and fix it.

▶ Solution 2. Repair corrupted hard disk using CHKDSK

The chkdsk command is the command-line version of disk check and it is more flexible to repair corrupted hard disk. Not only repair disk errors, it also helps to find out bad sectors on it and mark the space unusable.

Step 1. Type cmd in the search box, select it and Run as administrator.​

Step 2. Type chkdsk d: /f /r. Replace d: with the drive letter of your corrupted disk.

Notes:

• The /f parameter is to fix any found errors.
• The /r parameter is able to fix any errors on the disk, search for bad sectors and mark the space as usuable.
• To forcibly dismount the corrupted disk, you need to add the /x parameter.
• If you don’t add any parameter, this command only displays the disk status and does not fix any errors.

Step 3. If the corrupted disk is a system disk, it will ask you to run this command at the next system startup. Type yes and press Enter to restart the system now.

▶ Solution 3. Maintenance of the corrupted hard disk

You can also start system maintenance to scan and fix disk errors on this corrupted hard drive.

Step 1. Go to Control Panel > System and Security and select Security and Maintenance.​

Step 3. Scroll down to Maintenance and click Start maintenance.​

▶ Solution 4. Scan for Viruses

If you still cannot access your disk, it is feasible to run antivirus software like Windows Defender or third-party software - Norton Power Eraser to scan for viruses and remove them.

If you want to use Norton Power Eraser, please download Norton Power Eraser on another working PC. Because installing software on the corrupted disk may overwrite the data loss space, making data recovery more difficult.

Step 1. Connect the corrupted hard disk to a working PC and launch Norton Power Eraser.

Step 2. On the main page, click Scan for Risks. It will fix any potential risk to your system.

▶ Solution 5. Fix a corrupted hard disk with SFC & DISM

If your disk damage is caused by a file system error, you could try SFC and DISM commands to check the corrupted system files and replace it with a working version. In addition, the DISM command also be able to verify to file system integrity and ensure there is no corruption remains.

Step 1. Press the Windows + X keys and go for the Windows PowerShell(Admin) option.

Step 2. In the command prompt window, type sfc /scannow and press Enter.

Step 3. Then, type DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press Enter.

Notes:

• If you modify any system files, like DLL files, this method will revert them back to their original state.
• If your system fails to boot, you can access to Windows recovery environment and launch Command Prompt here.

▶ Solution 6. Update or reinstall the disk drivers

The disk drivers are responsible for communication between the operating system and hardware. If it’s outdated or corrupted, your system may not recognize your disk well. So you could try to fix a damaged hard drive by updating or reinstalling the drivers.

Step 1. Press the Win+R keys, input devmgmt.msc and press OK to start Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand Disk drives and find the corrupted hard disk. Right-click it and click Update drivers.

Note: To reinstall the disk drivers, click Uninstall Device and complete the rest of the steps. Then restart your system to get new available drivers.

Step 3. Click Search automatically for drivers.

Step 4. Click Update drivers, it will automatically download and install SSD drivers. Then, restart your computer to make the change take effect.

▶ Solution 7. Directly format the corrupted hard disk

Formatting is the last resort to repair a corrupted hard drive since it will delete data on the disk or erase the disk completely, depending on the selected disk formatting option.

Step 1. Right-click the Start menu and select Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click the damaged hard drive and select Format.

Step 3. Check the Perform a quick format option if you don’t want to erase this disk and click OK. Conversely, uncheck this option.

How to prevent disk corruption and data loss

While it is difficult to avoid wear and tear on the hard drive day by day, you still could take good precautions to prevent damaged disks due to viruses, disk format, file system errors, overheating, etc. Below are some feasible suggestions to help you.

Among them, the best way is to create a disk backup including the operating system, installed programs, personal data, drivers, etc. It allows you to recover data from a corrupted hard drive and get your entire disk back quickly. I strongly recommend free backup software - AOMEI Backupper Standard to create a scheduled backup.

Step 1. Download and run disk backup software - AOMEI Backupper Standard. Select Backup > Disk Backup.

Step 2. Click + Add Disk button to select the disk you want to backup. Then select the new disk to store the backup image.

Step 3. Click Schedule Backup and enable Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event trigger or USB plug in option. Then click Start Backup to backup the entire disk automatically.

FAQs

Summary

This article introduces you to how to recover data from a corrupted hard drive and fix it without formatting using chkdsk, sfc, scan for viruses, and more. Any write operation will cause data overwriting, making data recovery difficult. The most effective method is using data recovery software like AOMEI FastRecovery.

There are many things you can do to avoid corrupted hard drives and data loss. The best way is to create a disk backup at a regular time. Even if your disk is physically damaged, you still can restore the disk including everything to a new one.