Can dropping a HD cause data loss?

[DellAxim]

Sounds like a stupid question, but, I dropped my laptop a few feet the other day and I was horrified. It seemed to work fine for the rest of the day for simple web browsing. (besides some scratches ) It was running when I dropped it.

Then, I tried to open some larger programs and started getting all kinds of issues. Restarting windows took like 5 minutes, and most of my programs wouldn't run. Few error messages said something about a disk error. I tried to "refresh" windows, but that had errors too. Finally I completely wiped and reinstalled windows, and all seems to work good again.

What I'm wondering is if the running problems I had were a result of the drop? Or was it just a total coincidence that it happened on the same day? I know you can destroy a hard drive and lose data by dropping it, but if the hard drive is still physically functional, was it effected at all? I was able to hook up a USB hard drive and transfer all my files off before I reinstalled windows.

I know, I know, I'm gonna replace it with a SSD shortly.

 

[defaultluser]

yes

 

[timta2]

Yes, it can cause all kinds of internal mechanical damage. It might also be intermittent, or something that's not easily noticeable.

In addition to installing a SSD, I would work on a backup routine. There's really no reason to not be backing up all of the data you care about. Hard drives are dirt cheap these days.

 

[AlienTech]

Laptop hard drives might use glass platters.. They stand drops better.. I am sure if you do the smart check you will find a lot fo reallocated sectors.. But that also depends if the heads were parked, I think laptop hard drives by default park their heads about 30-60 seconds of idle time just because of the risk of people dropping them. At first they had a lot of trouble with glass platters because even a slight hit would tear off the magnetic coating off the glass platters but they seem to have fixed it now. Glass wont warp like very thin metal platters. I would run a full disk error scan to check for errors. Even if the heads are parked, it is kept parked using magnetic force and jar could release the heads to hit the platter.. The error scan would remap the bad sectors out..

Although head crashing is not so common these days as heads are very light and wont really dig into the metal but I have had to hear that screeching something and my hair would stand up.. Its very scarey.. I have a 160GB seagate sata 1 hard drive that does it once in a while, I am not sure why.. It was so stressful that I got a hitachi drive as soon as I could. The drive still works and shows no problems.. Guess the less you know, the happier you are.. And to think in school I would press down on the heads to hear that sound on those old mainframe hard drives.. I miss college..

 

[Lunas]

there is a drop sensor in some drives that parks the drive when it senses a drop i believe ibm came up with it when they still made laptops

 

[DaPayne]

Yes, dropping a hard drive can cause issues. That being said though, most drives have this feature built into them especially laptop hard drives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_hard-drive_protection hard drive falls and failures are a weird bear I have seen a drop of just a couple of inches causes a total data loss and falls of 10-20 feet not have any effect. If this was my data I would do a back backup immediately and probably change the hard drive. Situations like this make me happy that I have file storage setup both in my house and my work environments. That I have everything that is an important document stored in my own personal owncloud server.

 

[AlienTech]

Most hard drives can survive a 100G drop. But that is when it is prepared for shipping. I doubt any can handle a working drop of more than 10G's. And no matter what protection it has, it all depends where it lands and how.

Anyone remember the old commodore floppy drives which hammered their heads when ever it got an error? Once the warranty ran out, the drives became useless. I seen hard drives seek like that to position the heads after its lost sync and you get the click of death. I have never had a drive survive the click of death unless it was due to a low 12V supply line so dont know why they still use the head stopper as a position calibration marker instead of an optical sensor. Also some drives park the heads off the platters, but I never seen a real life drive that did not park its heads ON the platter itself. That would still cause the head to hit the platter and the flakes would later cause problems when it lands on an area with data on it.

 

[Zoomov]

It may be important if your HDD was in the moment of the read/write operation or in the standby mode when you dropped your laptop. If it was reading or writing something due to the fall impuls the HDD could "scratch" the surface and as a result you could have a data loss. Try some HDD test programs to determine the condition of your HDD now

 

[GioG]

They are incredibly fragile due to using small mechanical parts. Dropping them from a few feet onto a hard surface is enough to damage most 3.5 HDDs.

 

[AlienTech]

They are incredibly fragile due to using small mechanical parts. Dropping them from a few feet onto a hard surface is enough to damage most 3.5 HDDs.

Thats why 2.5 inch drives are made of glass platters. They dotn damage the heads as much as using metal platters. The problem with glass is the media comes off and causes errors. But they must have fixed such things by now. Seems they are more reliable than 3'5 drives. Laptops get a lot more abuse than desktops.

 

[Lunas]

Thats why 2.5 inch drives are made of glass platters. They dotn damage the heads as much as using metal platters. The problem with glass is the media comes off and causes errors. But they must have fixed such things by now. Seems they are more reliable than 3'5 drives. Laptops get a lot more abuse than desktops.

Not all are the glass platters. Glass platters are ibm patented tech and would more likely be implemented in who ever got that patent than every laptop drive also they used them in the 3.5 size drives too i have see pictures where a head crash at speed caused the platters to shatter like a cd at 10k rpm. Honestly I thought that would make for a great self destructive drive for top secret stuff just equip the drives with a striker that hits the platters at speed they would literally powder themselves.

Most laptop drives I have open used metal platters. And i have opened a number of drives...

 

[AlienTech]

Patents dont matter since they all cross license them. IBM got into it because the others did not have the capability to do it. I think they still have the research center in mountain view under someone else now. Toshiba says they developed TMR, Seagate says they developed PMR, but both use the same in their drives and so does everyone else. Oh yea, Toshiba uses glass platters in their 2.5 drives and they say they developed it and had a huge problem with the media coming off the glass. Seagate is probably the only one who never developed anything but they bought out everyone and pretty much owns the hard drive tech by now. Even the quantum tunneling read/write methods and that was developed in a university. When you have money you can buy it even if you have no clue how it works. See they dont know how it works, only that it does and then just use scientific terms like its a quantum effect, we dont know why it does it or how. Thank god for all the little things that makes things go round huh even if you have no idea why?

I opened up a WDC drive from 98 and that was glass.. So its not even a new invention.. It dont break easy though but instead of bending like metal platters it will break if you use force. I was sort of thinking they would break easy before that,a head crash wont break them.