How to Recover Data from Hard Drive with Bad Sectors?

Theo Lucia

Sep 01, 2023 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

Can I Recover Data from Hard Drive with Bad Sectors?

"Hello, I have an 80GB Hitachi external hard drive. Today when I connected it to my computer, I got an error message "Error 123 can't read sector 1". I have not been able to access my hard drive since then. My lifetime's worth of data is on the drive and I want my data back. Please tell me how I can recover all of my data. Many thanks."

Once your hard drive is physically damaged or broken, the chances for you to reclaim your files are small. However, there are solutions for you to recover data from hard drives with bad sectors if the hard drive is only corrupted. The corrupted hard drive means there is a system error with your drive and the files are just inaccessible. With hard drive data recovery software, your data can be retrieved easily.

Part 1: Recover Bad Sectors with Recoverit Data Recovery

Recoverit Data Recovery for Windows or Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac is a trustful hard drive data recovery software for you to recover data from a hard drive with bad sectors. It can recover all partitions from your hard drive. The power recovery feature of the hard drive data recovery software enables you to restore a huge amount of files in different formats, including images, videos, document files, audio files, etc. Besides, it is fully compatible with computer hard drives and removable hard drives.

Download a trial version to recover data from a hard drive with bad sectors now.

Your Safe & Reliable Hard Drive Recovery Software

Recover lost or deleted files, photos, audio, music, and emails from any storage device effectively, safely, and completely.
Supports data recovery from recycle bin, hard drive, memory card, flash drive, digital camera, and camcorders.
Supports recovery data for sudden deletion, formatting, hard drive corruption, virus attack, and system crash under different situations.

Download | Win Download | Mac

What Recoverit Can Recover from Hard Drive

Part 2: How to Recover Data from Hard Drive with Bad Sectors

Both versions of the program have similar hard drive data recovery operations. I will show you how to process the recovery with the Windows version of Recoverit Hard Drive Data Recovery Software.

Note: Lost data on your hard drive with bad sectors can be overwritten easily, Firstly, you need to stop the hard drive for any use if you want to reclaim all lost files. Moreover, please don't install this hard drive data recovery software on the hard drive with bad sectors.

Download | Win Windows Version Download | Mac Mac Version

Step 1. Choose your hard drive with bad sectors.

In this step, you will need to select the hard drive with bad sectors in the window and click the "Start" button to start searching for lost files on it.

recover data from hard drive

Note: If you're going to recover data from an external hard drive with bad sectors, please ensure that it can be recognized by your computer.

Step 2. Scan hard drive with bad sectors

Recoverit will start a quick scan on your hard drive with bad sectors. Wait for a little bit while and preview the scanned data.
If you could not find the data from the hard drive with bad sectors, you can click on "All-Around Recovery" to have a deeper scanning.

recover data from hard drive

Step 3. Recover data from hard drives with bad sectors

After scanning, files on your hard drive's partition will be displayed in the program window.
You can view original folder names or file names to check how many files on that hard drive with bad sectors can be reclaimed.
In the end, you can mark the files and folders you need, select the files to be retrieved, and click "Recover" to save them to your computer.
Note: To prevent recovered data from being overwritten, you can not keep files on the original hard drive with bad sectors.

recover data from hard drive

Tip: Fix the hard drive with bad sectors

There is a solution to fix the hard drive with bad sectors if the drive is not damaged. You can read How to Fix Bad Sectors on Hard Drive to solve this problem. However, before you solve the program, you had better recover lost data from it first.

Download | Win Windows Version Download | Mac Mac Version