This can range anywhere from random pop-ups and browser trouble, to losing large amounts of space for no reason, operating system freezes, and complete system shutdown.Īside from accidental deletion or formatting, there are other human errors that can compromise your hard drive.

It all boils to the kind of malware or virus that has entered your device. There are varying degrees of severity when it comes to the effects of malware/virus infection. A tell-tale sign of hard drive overheating would be a distinct clicking sound coming from the storage medium. Poor ventilation and airflow in your Windows laptop or PC can cause your hard drive to overheat which, in turn, may result in partial or complete drive failure. Accidental drive formatting falls under a similar category. Most of us have experienced deleted files that we thought were redundant or unnecessary, only to find out otherwise. Mistakenly deleting files is probably the most common cause of data loss in Windows PCs, despite there being a confirmation pop-up whenever you attempt to delete any information. Corruption can cause frequent operating system crashes, loss of important information, and, occasionally, full hard drive failure. Hard drive corruption can occur due to a variety of reasons, including a defective drive, user error, power failure, software issues, and more. That being said, here are some of the problems you’re likely to encounter with hard drives on Windows-based computers: Problem It could just be the natural progression of the medium as it reaches the end of its shelf-life, or it could be other factors that cause your drive to fail. Your hard drive can exhibit various different issues throughout its lifetime as part of a Windows machine. AOMEI Partition Assistant – Best Hard Drive Management AlternativeĬommon Problems With Hard Drives on Windows Seagate SeaTools – Best For Hard Drive Testing And Information Gathering CloneZilla – Best Open-Source Hard Drive Cloning And Imaging Solution MiniTool Partition Wizard – Best Hard Drive Partitioning tool Windows Directory Statistics – Best Hard Drive Disk Space Analyzer Testdisk – Best Open-Source Data Recovery Tool HDD Scan – Best For Hard Drive Health Monitoring Paragon Partition Manager – Best For Overall Hard Drive Management Disk Drill – Best For Hard Drive Data Recovery Common Problems With Hard Drives on Windows.

Windows 7 repair kit