How to Recover Data from Corrupted Hard Disk for Free

Tracy King updated on Nov 13, 2024 to Data Recovery | How-to Articles

Don't know how to recover files from corrupted hard disk? Powerful EaseUS corrupted hard drive recovery software enables you to recover data from corrupted hard disk with ease. Meanwhile, effective methods are available to help repair crashed hard disk drive without data loss.

How to recover data from a corrupted hard disk?

You can recover data from a hard disk or external hard drive with the top-notch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Moreover, you can also learn the full guide to fix corrupted hard drives without formatting. 

Have you ever come across the problem of a corrupted hard drive? When a hard drive is corrupted, you can no longer use it, although it does show as a disk. 

How Can the Hard Disk Become Corrupted

Some typical reasons for data loss from a crashed hard drive fall into two main categories: logical issues and physical damage. 

🗃️Logical Corruption

File System Corruption: This happens when there is damage to the system that controls data storage and retrieval. Erroneous shutdowns or program crashes may cause this kind of corruption.

Virus Attacks: Malicious software may distort, erase, hide, or alter your data. The good news is that recovering from certain malware infections doesn't often involve much pain.

When you attach an external hard drive to your computer, it appears in the list, but you cannot access it to use the data. In this scenario, you cannot view any files or data on the device. This is frequently caused by logical damage or viral infection.

🛠️Physical Corruption

Overheating: Heat is the most common cause of hard drive corruption. If your CPU fans aren't operating properly, your hard disk will overheat and become corrupted.

Mechanical failure: A broken hard drive can result from dropping, scratching, or shaking the device, rendering it non-functional. It results in physically broken drive components, preventing the dead hard disk from operating normally. Power surges and wetness exposure are other common causes of physical corruption on hard drives.

When your hard disk is physically corrupted, you should seek expert assistance for data recovery. Without experience, attempting a do-it-yourself recovery could also result in irreversible data loss.

How to Recover Data from Corrupted Hard Disk Free in 3 Steps

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard has a user-friendly interface that allows users to recover files from corrupted and external hard drives without effort. This hard drive recovery software allows you to restore lost data from hard drives in many situations. 

Note: If you cannot boot the computer after the system hard drive is corrupted, you can create a WinPE bootable CD/DVD of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover the corrupted hard drive.

Step 1. Scan the corrupted hard disk

Select the corrupted drive on your hard disk where you lost or deleted files. Click "Scan" and let EaseUS data recovery software scan for all lost data and files on the selected drive.

Step 2. Check the results

When the scan is complete, apply the "Filter" feature or click the "Search files or folders" option to find the lost files on the hard drive.

Step 3. Restore lost hard drive data

Select wanted files that you lost on the drive and click "Recover" to save them to another location.

If you still have difficulty recovering data from a corrupted hard disk using the free data recovery software, watch this video for help. It provides you with more details on hard drive recovery.

Repair the Corrupted Hard Drive with Data Recovery Service

If you are hesitant to try the software, hiring a trustworthy data recovery service provider specializing in corrupted hard drive recovery is a sensible choice. The first option to fix and repair corrupted hard drives is using EaseUS data recovery services, of which the experts can help you check and repair the corrupted file system and bad sectors online. 

EaseUS data recovery professionals are skilled at recovering data from a range of devices, including hard drive corruption. Our professionals claim an unrivaled 90% success rate. Thus, you can be secure in the knowledge that your data will be returned to you.

EaseUS Data Recovery Services for Corrupted HDD

Click here to contact our experts for a free evaluation

Consult with EaseUS data recovery experts for one-on-one manual recovery service. We could offer the following services after a FREE diagnosis

  • Repartition the drive and fix HDD/SSD problems.
  • Reformat the hard drive and fix the RAW drive
  • Fix a damaged virtual disk file (.vmdk,.vhd,.vhdx, etc.)
  • Repair your disk to ensure optimal performance.

Here are the steps of trying this service:

Step 1. Click the link to contact the experts. They will evaluate your hard drive's full degree of harm and offer suggestions for recovering the most data.

Step 2. After diagnosing the problem, they will value the recovery services in price.

Step 3. EaseUS professional data recovery services let you arrange a remote desktop meeting with committed support engineers. The IT experts will repair your corrupted hard drive and recover data from it remotely. 

Bonus Tip. Repair Corrupted Hard Drive After Recovery

How do you repair the hard disk after restoring lost files from a corrupted hard disk drive? Below are a few tips.

Tip 1. Using CMD to repair the hard disk drive

If the hard disk has bad sectors or internal errors, the hard disk can corrupt easily. If you know how to run the CHKDSK command on your PC, it will be effortless for you to recover data from a hard disk. Let's see how to run CHKDSK and repair the corrupted hard disk drive now:

  • Press Win + X, and select "Command Prompt (Admin)".
  • Click "Yes" to launch Command Prompt as Administrator.
  • Type chkdsk and hit "Enter" to check errors in the corrupted hard drive.
  • Type chkdsk C: /f /r/x to let CHKDSK fix the drive. (C is the drive letter of your corrupted hard drive)

If the target drive is a boot disk, the system will ask you to run the command before the next boot. Type yes and hit "Enter" to restart the computer. The command will run before the operating system loads, allowing it to access the disk and fully repair the corrupted drive.

Tip 2. Run a Disk Check to Fix Corrupted Hard Disk

  • Open This PC or Computer, right-click the hard drive, and select "Properties".
  • Click "Tools" and click "Check".
  • Select "Check local disk" and click "Start".
  • Close all running and open programs, and select the option to let the system check upon the next boot.
  • After this, restart the PC.

If it reports that your drive has 'bad sectors or clusters', don't worry. CHKDSK command in Tip One will fix this issue.

Tip 3. Repair the Corrupted System Drive from the Control Panel

  • Press Win + X, and select "Control Panel".
  • Click "System and Security" > tab "Action Center" > expand "Maintenance" and click "Run Scan".
  • Click "Restart".

It's Easy to Make a Corrupted Hard Drive Recovery 

After all these steps, you can successfully recover data from a corrupt hard drive and fix the corrupt hard disk issue with useful methods. Now, you can reuse the hard disk drive to store and save data again. If you face a similar problem on your corrupted hard drive, external hard drive, or USB storage devices, don't worry. Just follow this article to get your problem fixed without losing any data.

Corrupted Hard Drive Recovery FAQ

Here are 4 additional questions about how to recover data from a corrupted hard disk. Check here for the answers.

1. How to recover the corrupted hard drive by myself?

  • You can repair the corrupted Windows hard drive with an antivirus program. Windows Defender or other third-party solutions can remove the infection and repair your hard drive.
  • Use Command Prompt to repair the corrupted Windows hard drive, and then use the CHKDSK command to check and repair the disk.
  • Select a file system repair tool to fix the corrupted Windows hard drive.

2. Can a corrupted hard drive be recovered?

A corrupted hard disk can be recovered with free data recovery software, such as EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Install the software on your computer. Start it up and select the corrupted hard drive to scan for lost files.

3. How can I recover my corrupted hard drive for free?

Steps to free data recovery from a corrupted hard drive:

  • Download and install the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for free.
  • Launch EaseUS data recovery software and choose the faulty hard disk to scan.
  • Preview and recover the files from the corrupted hard drive.

4. Can formatting HDD fix a corrupted hard drive?

Yes, that is one option to consider. A full format will completely clean the hard drive, rebuild all its file structures, and scan the disk to ensure everything is in working order. However, this operation results in data loss.