How to Fix an Overheated Hard Drive - 8 free ways
This article aims to share the reasons why a hard drive becomes overheating and how to fix the problems without causing further damage.
Table of Contents
8 Ways to Cool Down HDD That Is Overheated
When you realize that HDD has been overheated, you can do use following methods:
Method1: Press Ctrl + Al + Del keys to open Windows Task Manger > click "Processes" tab > select the process which occupy most CPU resource and click "End Process"
Method2: Close the programs that you do not need to use
When booting computer, it probably launch some unnecessary programs. You can close all programs that are not in need. You can also disable to boot those unnecessary programs by clicking "Start" menu > "Run" > type "msconfig" to open system configuration utility > select the program you no longer want to launch when booting computer and click "Ok" button
Mehtod3: Check and remove virus
You can run antivirus software to scan hard disk to see if it contains viruses and remove all of them.
Method 4: Keep clean (a professional computer dust cleaner can be applied)
Too many dusts in case or hard drives might cause hard drive to be overheated, so you had better make it clean. This is even more important for a laptop.
Method 5: Fix bad sectors on hard drive
You can check and repair bad sectors on a hard disk by the following ways.
#1 error checking in Windows that could repair bad blocks
Video - how to repair bad blocks using error checking
How to open it? => 'This PC' -> 'Right click hard drive' -> 'Properties'
#2 - repair bad blocks with cmd chkdsk i: /f /r /x (replace i with your own drive letter)
Chkdsk /f /r /x to repair disk
Note: If there are many volumes on your hard drive, you may use this following order:
- list disk
- select disk *
- chkdsk /f /r /x
If you still do not know how to use it, then you may repair your volumes on your hard drive one by one with the cmd "chkdsk i: /f /r /x" and replace i with drive letters one by one at a time.
Video - how to repair damaged disk using chkdsk
Also read: how to repair bad sectors for hdd
Method 6: Clean the air flow
Blocked air flow -- Air needs to be able to flow into the computer so the fans can do their jobs. Be sure your computer is located where nothing blocks the air from getting to the vents.
Method 7: Fix/clean computer fans
Malfunctioning fans—When a fan gets dirty, it has to work harder to keep a proper temperature and causes your hard drive to overheat. Clean your fans every three to six months.
Method 8: Clean the dust
Dust Not only does dust block air flow, it also insulates components that need to be cooled by the fans. Dust plays big for your computer performances that you need to put your computer in a place that is easy to keep clean and dust-free.
Hard Drive Overheating Symptoms
Heat is an enemy of hard drive because it probably causes serious damage to the HDD. Then, is there any symptom when a hard drive is overheating?
Related Case: Is My HDD Overheating?
"I have two hard drives Seagate Barracuda and Western Digital WD Blue on my computer. The temperatures of both hard drives are from 40C° to 50C°. Is my hard drive overheating?"
This is an FAQ I saw on tomshardware.com. You can read the original question from tomshardware.com forum.
HDD Overheating Symptoms
The normal temperature of a hard drive is from 40C° to 50C° when it is in work. The temperature of HDD should not be more than 70 C°. An IDE hard drive is usually from 30 C° to 50 C°. It probably causes data loss or even worse it may damage the hard drive when its temperature is up to 100 C°. The hard drive temperature might be affected by some external factors. For example, the more time the hard drive works, the higher temperature it will have. As long as the system does not report any alert message or computer does not frequently reboot / freeze, we usually consider that the temperature of hard drive is normal.
It is normal that a laptop’s hard drive temperature is a little higher than that of a desktop because a desktop loses heat faster than a laptop.
You can check the temperature of a hard drive by installing a third-party computer inspector tool on your PC.
HDD Overheating Causes
When you read or write data on a hard drive, the temperature of hard drive will become higher. However, it does not lead the HDD to be overheated. Usually, following reasons probably causes HDD overheating problem:
1. The ambient is too high
If the ambient has a high temperature, hard drive may become overheated. For example, in summer, when the ambient temperature is more than 30 C°, the hard drive gets overheated. The temperature of hard drive is lower in winter because the ambient temperature is lower than that of summer. You can clean the dusts in case and fans to cool the hard drive in this situation.
2. Too many programs are running on computer at the same time
If you run too many applications at the same time on your computer, it will occupy CPU resource and cause HDD to be overheated.
3. Hard drive has bad sectors
If a hard drive contains bad sectors, it will become overheated when you write data to it. The frequent data writing process will overheat the hard drive.
4. Hard drive is infected with virus
Virus infection would cause many disasters to your hard drive. When a HDD is attacked by virus, hard drive probably keeps writing and reading data all the time and then becomes overheating.
5. Fans do not work
Fans installed on computer stop working and lead the hard drive to be unable to lose heat, so hard drive becomes overheated after working for a while.
The hard drive overheating reasons are various. You may meet more other issues that cause the overheating of HDD.
Can Bad Hard Drive Cause Overheating?
The answer is yes! Therefore, it is recommended you buy a hard drive that has good quality. When you buy a hard drive, do not buy a fake one. You can buy hard drive from manufactures which have good reputation like Seagate hard drive, Western Digital hard drive, Samsung hard drive, ADATA hard drive, etc.
Does Overheating of Hard Drive Cause Any Damage?
The answer is yes! If it does not have any influence, why so many people feel panic when their hard drive gets overheating? Then, how does overheating affect a hard drive?
1. Damage hard drive
Hard drive contains some sensitive electronic and components, which might be seriously damaged by high heat. For example, overheating of hard drive might burn the circuit board of hard drive, in which situation hard drive becomes not recognized by computer. Then, you are unable to read or write data on a damaged hard drive. When a hard drive stops working, it will have influence on computer such as: computer freezes and stops working, computer shuts down without any warning, PC cannot boot and more.
2. System crash
Hard drive overheating problem cause system crash and lead computer to stop working normally.
3. Hard drive data loss
Overheating of hard drive can even cause serious data loss. Long time HDD overheating will corrupt the hard drive such as cause bad sectors, in which situation data stored on the hard disk will become inaccessible.
Overheated Hard Drive Recovery
When a hard drive is temporarily overheated, you can stop writing or reading data for a while to wait the hard drive to cool off in order to cause further damage or data loss. If it has caused data loss because of hard drive overheating problem, you can use data recovery software to get back lost files before the hard drive becomes physically damaged.
Here, we recommend you use iCare Data Recovery Pro to perform a safe data recovery from overheated hard disk drive.
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Last updated on Nov 28, 2023
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