No place and no person is ever completely immune to power surges and voltages. You can invest in various ways to keep your computer safe, but sometimes, a nasty power cut is all it takes for your data to be in danger.
Oftentimes, even if your power goes down, your device—be it a laptop or a desktop—will simply shut down and recover on its own when it can. Sometimes, a power cut equals something much worse, from recent data loss to major issues with your device.
Fortunately, there are ways to recover your data after a power surge or outage. Below, we'll walk you through all the steps to try out when you're suffering from data loss, and we'll give you some tips to make sure you're protected if it ever happens again.
Key Takeaways:
- Power surges and outages can cause data loss from physical damage or logical errors.
- A sudden surge can result in a voltage spike that overloads components, burns out electronics, or melts solder joints and traces.
- Power interruptions during read and write operations can lead to file corruption and damaged data structures.
- Data recovery services are the best option for retrieving data from a storage device with electrical damage.
What’s the Impact of a Power Surge or Outage on Your PC?
Did you know that power outages account for 35% of unexpected downtime for businesses? That shows the scale of the problem, which can never fully be avoided.
Many power outages or surges don't have any major consequences. The worst thing that happens is that you lose some progress on whichever files you were using at the time of the crash. However, sometimes, the impact can be drastic.
Some of the consequences of power outages and surges include:
- Power issues can cause file corruption. Whether your power spikes or goes out, your processes and files may be affected.
- Both events may result in operating system issues. This means boot errors, OS instability, and corruption.
- Data loss on your storage devices is a common side-effect of power surges and outages. In traditional HDDs, these events can damage the read/write heads or create corrupted sectors. Meanwhile, SSDs don't have moving parts that can sustain that kind of physical damage, but power surges/outages still disrupt data storage cycles. That can cause firmware and file system corruption.
- Other components may get damaged, too. A power surge can damage just about any component in a computer, including the motherboard, the power supply unit (PSU), the processor (CPU), or the graphics card (GPU). This may not cause data loss on its own, but it'll still hugely damage your PC.
- Even drives connected via RAID arrays or external drives can still be damaged or suffer from data loss.
Outside of straight-up hardware damage, many disastrous power outages or surges end up in data loss.
Signs of Data Loss and Damage After a Power Surge or Outage
An obvious sign of data loss is, well, data loss. If you try to access your file and it's not working, that's never a good thing.
However, data loss or damage to your PC can manifest itself in many ways. It might not be obvious at a glance what the problem is.
Here are some of the most common signs of data loss, corruption, and system problems following power outages or surges:
- Your PC fails to boot
- Missing files or folders
- Errors such as "Disk not found" or "Operating system missing"
- Files that won't open
- Files that do open, but show damaged content
- Unresponsive external drives
- Strange noises coming from your PC or storage devices
- Blue screens of death (BSOD)
- PC crashes
- Slow performance
- You can't save any files
If any of the above is happening, you're at risk of data loss. Below, we'll talk about preventing and fixing the problem so that you can protect and recover your data.
How To Prevent Data Loss After a Power Outage or Surge
If your power just went out or you suspect that your device has been hit by a power surge, don't panic.
The best way to avoid data loss is prevention, and that doesn't just mean backing up your data—it also means acting fast as soon as something goes wrong.
1. Unplug everything
Be it a surge or a power cut, your best bet is to unplug everything, from your computer to your monitor and external hard drives. Power surges and outages can cause sudden voltage spikes, and electronics really, really don't like those.
To protect your device, unplug it during or immediately after an outage. This prevents residual electricity from damaging any part of your computer, including your storage drives.
It's also a good idea to pre-emptively unplug your devices if you think that you might experience unstable power conditions. This includes storms and other natural disasters, but also planned maintenance.
2. Check all cables
Following a surge, some power cords may get damaged; the same applies to connector pins and ports in a desktop PC or a laptop. This is why it's important to not go rushing in—you should first inspect all the cables and connectors on your device.
All you need is a visual inspection. Look out for frayed wires, burn marks, or melted plastic. If there are any signs of those things, or perhaps a burnt smell, you shouldn't try to power up your device; doing this might cause damage that's way beyond repair.
This step is especially important after a surge, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to do after a power outage.
3. Let the power stabilize
Once you've unplugged everything, keep your device off for a while. Give it a few minutes even after your power comes back, as this lets the grid settle.
4. Plug devices into an uninterruptible power supply or surge protector
Once this is all sorted, consider investing in an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or a surge protector. The UPS adds an extra layer of protection by providing backup power in case of an outage. This backup keeps systems running for long enough to save work and properly shut down or switch to another power source. A surge protector absorbs and diverts excess voltage to preserve electronics during a sudden spike. These power protection devices go a long way toward keeping your files safe.
If you don't have one on hand and you need to turn your computer back on immediately, that's fine, but inspect both the cables and the sockets for damage first.
5. Restart your PC
After you've completed all the checks and you're sure that the power in your home or office is stable, it's time to boot your PC.
If everything loads as it should, let it run and keep a close eye on performance. The first thing to do (once you've had your device up and running for a few minutes) is to check whether all the files are in order.
Start by retracing your steps. Check the files you were working on prior to the power cut and verify whether they're intact.
If anything seems amiss, your PC is suffering from data loss. Don't worry—you can get your files back in no time!
How To Recover Data After a Power Surge or Outage
Let's say that you were able to safely power your PC back on. That's great! That means that you've likely avoided the worst disasters, meaning things that would force you to replace some of the more expensive hardware. However, your data may still be corrupted.
There are some steps you can take to recover your data, though, so no worries! Let's get right to it.
1. Restore from backups
Backing up your data is crucial, which is why we have a full guide to data backup strategies. However, if you're dealing with data loss following a surge or an outage, you might have to rely on other ways to restore your data.
If you're running Windows, start by typing File History into the Windows search bar. Windows has a built-in backup tool that might have saved your files to the cloud if you've enabled it before.
Next, you can try your luck with Windows' built-in System Restore tool. Keep in mind though that this typically helps only if you're having issues with software or drivers and won't help with data loss.
If you backup your files, check external drives and cloud solutions and try to restore them. You may have still lost some progress if you were currently working on something, but the loss should be less drastic than without backups.
Nothing else worked? Don't worry—we've got you.
2. Use SecureRecovery
Note: Do not run data recovery software on a storage device with physical damage. Doing so could result in permanent data loss. Software tools are best suited for simple file corruption after interrupted read or writes. If you suspect your device suffered damage, assess the risks before continuing.
Losing your data can be nothing more than a nuisance, but more often than not, it's a huge problem. Whether you've lost that important PowerPoint you needed for a meeting the next day, or a bunch of personal photos, it's always a loss.
Fortunately, recovering your data has never been simpler—just as long as you work with the right tools.
Secure Data Recovery is the leading provider of data recovery services all across the U.S. With nearly two decades of experience in recovering lost and corrupted files, Secure Data Recovery is the simplest way for you to get your files back.
Based on their industry-leading expertise and skill, our team of engineers prepared several tools that can help you restore your data after a power surge or outage.
Our toolkit includes recovery services for:
- Hard drives
- SSDs
- RAID arrays
- Diskettes
- Flash drives
- CDs
- DVDs
- Removable media
The best part is that our tools, while boasting high recovery rates, are available for free.
Save yourself the hassle of trying to restore your data and use a program that does it quickly and easily. Try out Secure Data Recovery to fix your files!
Recover Your Files With Secure Data Recovery
Losing your files to a power surge or outage is something you can't predict. Even with all sorts of protective measures in place, it still might happen, and you could be at risk of losing important work documents or precious personal files.
At Secure Data Recovery, our mission is to help you get your files back quickly and easily, not to mention in perfect condition. Losing your files shouldn't be scary when you know that help is out there.
With an industry-leading 96% success rate and our signature No Data, No Recovery Fee guarantee, Secure Data is the best option to restore your files.
Call us today at 800-388-1266 or request help to get your files back.
