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13 Common Data Storage Failures and How Likely the Files Can Be Recovered

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Published: Aug 25, 2009

Updated: Feb 2, 2021

1 minute read

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13 Common Data Storage Failures and How Likely the Files Can Be Recovered
Human error (file deletion, formatting a hard drive etc., The the most common way files are lost):
Computer viruses:
Software files corruption (database file gets corrupt because of a software glitch):
Media logical problem (file system corruption, etc.):
Media physical problem with bad electronics (circuitry of the media goes bad):
Media Physical problem with internal damage (bad head stack) [Magnetic Hard Drives only];
Media Physical problem with bad motor (drive doesnt spin, etc:) [Magnetic hard drives only];
Natural disasters (flood, fire etc.):
Dropped storage meeting in a laptop got dropped or an external drive:
No Title
Degraded tape media:
Bad quality or aging CD/DVD storage media (over time the film on a CD/DVD will degrade):
Known manufacturing defects causing loss of access to data:

13 Common Data Storage Failures and How Likely the Files Can Be Recovered

by Chris Preimesberger

Human error (file deletion, formatting a hard drive etc., The the most common way files are lost):

Good probability of recovery.

Computer viruses:

Good probability of recovery.

Software files corruption (database file gets corrupt because of a software glitch):

Good probability of recovery.

Media logical problem (file system corruption, etc.):

Good probability of recovery.

Media physical problem with bad electronics (circuitry of the media goes bad):

Good probability of recovery.

Media Physical problem with internal damage (bad head stack) [Magnetic Hard Drives only];

Fair probability of recovery.

Media Physical problem with bad motor (drive doesnt spin, etc:) [Magnetic hard drives only];

Fair probability of recovery.

Natural disasters (flood, fire etc.):

fair probability of recovery.

Dropped storage meeting in a laptop got dropped or an external drive:

fair probability of recovery.

No Title

Flash media write/overwrite limit exceeded (excessive usage will eventually cause flash memory to fail): fair probability of recovery.

Degraded tape media:

fair probability of recovery.

Bad quality or aging CD/DVD storage media (over time the film on a CD/DVD will degrade):

poor to fair probability of recovery.

Known manufacturing defects causing loss of access to data:

poor to fair probability of recovery.

Chris Preimesberger

Chris J. Preimesberger is Editor Emeritus of eWEEK. In his 16 years and more than 5,000 articles at eWEEK, he distinguished himself in reporting and analysis of the business use of new-gen IT in a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, data center systems, storage, edge systems, security and others. In February 2017 and September 2018, Chris was named among the 250 most influential business journalists in the world (https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-250-business-journalists/) by Richtopia, a UK research firm that used analytics to compile the ranking. He has won several national and regional awards for his work, including a 2011 Folio Award for a profile (https://www.eweek.com/cloud/marc-benioff-trend-seer-and-business-socialist/) of Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff--the only time he has entered the competition. Previously, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. He has been a stringer for the Associated Press since 1983 and resides in Silicon Valley.

13 Common Data Storage Failures and How Likely the Files Can Be Recovered

13 Common Data Storage Failures and How Likely the Files Can Be Recovered

Human error (file deletion, formatting a hard drive etc., The the most common way files are lost):

Computer viruses:

Software files corruption (database file gets corrupt because of a software glitch):

Media logical problem (file system corruption, etc.):

Media physical problem with bad electronics (circuitry of the media goes bad):

Media Physical problem with internal damage (bad head stack) [Magnetic Hard Drives only];

Media Physical problem with bad motor (drive doesnt spin, etc:) [Magnetic hard drives only];

Natural disasters (flood, fire etc.):

Dropped storage meeting in a laptop got dropped or an external drive:

No Title

Degraded tape media:

Bad quality or aging CD/DVD storage media (over time the film on a CD/DVD will degrade):

Known manufacturing defects causing loss of access to data:

Chris Preimesberger

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