How to Fix Hard Drive Shows 0 Bytes? Used 0 Bytes Free Issue
Hard drive failure is one of the most common reasons for data loss. If you are techy, you will be aware of the fact that the complexity of present hard drives ensures that something or another will go wrong with your hard drive. There are strong chances that eventually this will happen to people around you and one day to you as well. However, there is no need to panic. This blog post will describe the reasons that cause hard drive failure and the methodology to adopt in order to perform the hard drive recovery process, as it shows that the hard drive shows 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free.
Drive Components Exhibiting Hard Drive Failure
It usually happens that your machine can detect the hard drive but is unable to access it. A hard drive is comprised of many constituents, which, once damaged, can put the hard drive on the verge of dying. Before moving on to the solutions to recover files from formatted hard drive let’s first look at the hard drive components. The different components of a hard drive that make it fail are:
1. PCB : It is a circuit board attached to the bottom of a hard drive. The main controller and other controllers reside on the PCB. It contains 2 TVS diodes, which act as fuses to protect the drive at times of power spikes. It can be rightly designated as the interface that turns the operating system on and passes on the usable data to the computer.
2. Platters : A platter is a circular disk that stores the magnetic data on the hard drive. There are several thin splatters on a hard disk drive. They spin at a speed of 5,900 rpm to 7,200 rpm. With a storage capacity of up to 4 TB, they are the main source that stores the data.
3. Head Assembly: The data stored on platters is read with the help of read and write heads situated at a negligible height from the platters. A hard drive consists of two drives per platter. If the heads fail physically, they will no longer operate at a distance above the platters but instead, will crash and touch the platters, which will eventually lead to data loss.
4. Firmware : A firmware is a mini operating system on a hard drive used to deal with the data and operations of the hard drive. A small portion of firmware is stored on the PCB. When the firmware does not function properly, it will lead to hard drive failure.
What to Do in Case Hard Drive Shows 0 Bytes?
Hard Drive Does Not Spin: At an instance when nothing happens when you turn on your machine, i.e., your hard drive does not spin and does not make a sound, then there is a strong probability that the PCB is posing some problems. It may have happened due to a short circuit in any of the diodes that are attached to the PCB. You can check whether the diodes have been shorted by checking them with the help of a multimeter. If the diodes show a 0 ohm reading, then they have definitely been damaged. The only way out of this is to remove the diode and replace it with a new one.
If the diodes are not shorted, then it implies that the PCB itself has been damaged. Replacing the PCB is a solution for this damage. However, take care that each PCB contains an 8-pin ROM chip that stores the information required to start up a machine. So carefully remove this chip from the old PCB and affix it to the new one.
The Hard Drive Spins But Is Not Accessible: This implies that the magnetic data stored on the platters has been damaged. To work out this issue, you can use tools like software images. The image will work on the corrupted sectors of the hard drive. However, care should be taken while you try to recover data from failed hard drive manually with the software image. The software image increases the risk of data loss and can lead to permanent damage to your hard drive.
Fix and Recover 0 Byte Files in CMD
CHKDSK is a system utility in the Windows OS. It helps in checking the disks for bad sectors and helps to detect and fix errors on the hard disk. After this, it verifies the integrity of the file system on the logical drive. The mentioned command can be easily executed in the DOS prompt or Windows CMD. It has various parameters to recover check disk data.
Note: Before using this method, it is recommended to take a complete backup of the data.
Solution to Retrieve Drive Data when Hard Drive Shows 0 Bytes
If byte 0 of a device used in disk management appears as raw, you cannot access the device. With the help of professional hard drive recovery software, you can recover all your valuable data. Hard Disk Recovery Wizard is a tool that allows you to quickly and safely recover data from hard drives or other storage devices in case of “0 bytes” problems.
1: Download the hard drive recovery tool on your computer.
2: The software offers two scanning options: scan and format scanning.
3: You can view the full scan progress report
4: Once the scan is complete, you will be able to see all the folders on the left panel.
6: Now select the files you want to recover and click “Save All Data” or “Save Deleted Data” to save them.
Conclusion
Hard drives are an essential part of our machines, as they store all vital data items. With successful technology, all these hard drives persist and are ignored in our daily lives, if something goes wrong. Most of the time, users face an issue where the hard drive shows 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free; In the above discussion, we have discussed a similar way to resolve the issue.