Multiple users are still confused about physical and logical data recovery for hard disk drive (HDD). Thus, in this article, we’ll throw out a quick comparison of them.
Hard drive can be subject to both physical and logical data losses. And different kinds of data losses should be dealt with different types of data recovery means. Maybe you are still unclear about the two kinds. Don’t worry. In the followings, we’ll unveil them in detail.
Physical vs Logical Data Loss
When it comes to data recovery, it is necessary to first mention data loss. Thus, in this section, we will expose the differences of physical and logical data losses in 2 aspects – causes and symptoms.
1. Causes
Physical data losses commonly take place due to physical damage of hard drive, such as heads crashes, spindle seizure, printed circuit board corruption and so on. Such damages generally result from by abnormal environment, drop, impact or water, fire, etc.
Yet, in contrast, logical data losses are totally different. It usually occurs owing to human errors, like mistaken file deletion, partition failure, like partition deletion or corruption, or accidental formatting, virus infection and so on.
2. Symptoms
In the event of physical data losses, in general, you’ll find some mechanical issues involving the hard drive. For example, you could hear clicking, whirling or other grinding noises from the drive.
Yet, in case of logical data losses, if the drive is an internal one in a computer, the computer may fail to boot up as normal. Or files may be lost or corrupt, like PST corruption. If the drive is a member in RAID, the RAID array may be offline.
Physical vs Logical Data Recovery
After exploring the physical and logical data loss, thereinafter, we’ll further probe into corresponding data recovery.
1. Method
Provided that you are subject to physical data loss, you should attempt physical data recovery. Such data recovery mostly involves the component replacement, reconstructing traces, platter transplant, and so on. All these operations should be taken in the cleanroom with specialized tools and professional experience. Or else, the drive will suffer further damage. Therefore, you shouldn’t attempt such recovery on your own.
In contrary, logical data recovery is much easy to perform. It usually includes the deletion of virus, program restoration, file system repair and partition recovery, etc. Powerful data recovery software can do these. You can pick out and download a reliable one from market and run it by following instructions.
2. Price
On basis of the different recovery methods, obviously, physical data recovery is much more complicated and stricter in many respects than logical recovery. Thus, it’s sure that physical data recovery is more expensive than logical one. So, please treat your hard drive with best care to avoid physical damage.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including corrupt sql and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
Hi. i have a problem with my hdd wd red 4 tb. I use a dell precision t7500. I have bought on august a WD RED 4 TB. When i installed the HDD on the my pc it only recognized 2tb hdd. So i took to pc service and they formatted the hdd on an other pc and then put it on my pc. after 2 weeks of using it i got the first sing of hdd. I started hearing a beep beep from the HDD. I went where i bought it and they told me that i was using an extension cable and they change the power cable, and i didn’t hear the noise. One moth later i was coping the SD card to hdd and suddenly the speed dropped. i tried to open the hdd , and it asked me to format it . then i took the pc again where i bought, and they tried to recover but the could. He later told me i did a check disk on drive and find no errors. Than i took to gillware, and drive savers labs in USA, and they recovered only 25GB and told me that there are no trace of other data.