It’s 2023! Have you ever accidentally shut down your computer or storage device (tablet, smartphone, or PDA) in the middle of something important? You’re playing a game or writing a document. Did you save it in time? Maybe you were inputting figures into an Excel (.xls) worksheet and didn’t save in time. Data loss from a sudden electrical problem can be infuriating. While your PC may allow you to recover a document on occasion, in most cases, you will have lost your files.
Damaged USB Drives and Hardware from Electrical Surges.
If you’re to blame, at least you’ll know to take greater care next time. Put it down to experience. Perhaps keep your feet away from the power switches or USB drive ports! What if your device is struck by a power surge? These happen when lightning causes a massive boost in electrical power. Electrical bursts create too much energy for outlets and USB drives or other storage devices to handle. The flow of electricity to your device becomes interrupted. Also, electricity’s sent back into the system for other reasons. Certain plugs, sockets, and adapters feature surge protection. Not all power strips guarantee complete safety.
At eProvided, as data recovery specialists, we see computers affected by power surges. Likewise, people worry about the data on their tablets, microSD’s, smartphones, and cellphones. Above all, they don’t expect their data to disappear forever. In some circumstances,’ hardware can become so damaged that it affects the storage components. Generally, your data should remain safe. But, did you save your data or photos regularly? The best advice, always have surge protection, and disconnect your computer or plugged-in storage devices during a lightning storm. Smartphones and cellphones can also be damaged while charging due to lightning strikes.
Power Surge, Check for Lost Data, and Damaged Hard Drives.
When hard drives and USB drives suffer a power surge, their printed circuit boards are typically damaged. Surges stop hard drives from spinning properly. Sometimes the surge can be strong enough to damage the read/write heads. Newer external USB sticks and flash media drives are affected at the NAND flash level. Controllers that tell the data how to speak to the computer are shorted. As data recovery specialists, we can help save your work no matter what type of device you own or the circumstances it experienced.
If you’re in the middle of saving documents, photos, videos, or other important files when a power surge occurs, they will not be saved properly. Compare it to yourself trying to memorize something only to have a hefty dosage of electricity pumped through you. It’s likely you won’t remember much, would you? If you believe your hard drive has received physical damage that may affect storage, or you’re unsure whether the documents have saved properly, the important thing is to avoid booting it yourself. If you do, you may make matters worse. How? Switching a physically damaged hard drive or USB drive on could cause any underlying technical problems to take effect. At this point, any lost data could be overwritten.
Power Surge Damage to Hard Drive.
There are many ways a hard drive can fail after a power surge. A sudden power outage can cause the hard drive’s control board to short circuit. Flash memory inside of SSDs, USB thumb drives, and SD cards PCB pulls data from the NAND flash memory chips. The PCB within hard drives has various chips, which includes the firmware that runs the HDD. In other words, the PCB tells the drive how to operate. Sudden power fluctuations to the PCB will cause the hard drive to stop receiving signals. Damage from a black-out also affects other computer components, like the operating system. After a hard drive abruptly loses power, its “shutdown sequence” is interrupted. Consequently, causing corrupted files, and damages the operating system. Corrupt data is recoverable from hard drives and external drives. Recover missing data from your failed hard drive with professional data recovery engineers.
Recovery Specialists with Innovative Techniques.
Our team of experienced, expert data recovery specialists have extensive knowledge of most types of storage devices. Whatever the model, whatever the problem, we have helped thousands of business and customers worldwide access the files they believed lost. In the event of a power surge, we’ll assess the problem and use whichever techniques we believe work best to ensure a clean, safe recovery.
eProvided, Serving the Globe for Over 16 Years.
Whether your computer’s hard drive, your tablet, your smartphone/cellphone have become damaged from a power surge, trust eProvided to retrieve your files. Learn more. Get advice on protecting your data against power surge-related file loss. Give eProvided a call Toll-free 1-866-857-5950.