Can a computer die without warning?

Richard

Yes, computers may fail without warning. If the failure has not affected the main storage (Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Device), then that can be connected to another computer as a secondary drive to recover the files. As often happens, the storage unit fails, and this means either all the data in the device is lost or you could try paying a data recovery service to try and get back as much as possible. This can be expensive and may not recover all the data depending on just what has failed in the HDD or SSD. You should always make regular backups to external removable media and possibly to Cloud storage of anything that is important. What would you do if your computer was stolen? You would have to rely on backups that have probably not been making.

Bill-M

Happens all the time. But you don't necessarily loose all your files. Very seldom is it the Hard Drive. REMOVE the Hard Drive and make it an External drive and you should be able to access the files. But you should also be backing up your files.

m8xpayne

Since a Platter/Mechanical hard drive is the least durable piece of hardware in a PC, I would suggest backing up the system if you can't afford to lose anything. The only time you have to worry about your files being taken out is when the hard drive dies. If the hard drive is fine then you would just need the hardware fixed. Again, If your files are a concern and you can't afford to lose them, then BACKUP your system or the files you don't want to lose. It seems as if people have gotten very lax about backing up their systems these days. Yes, a PC can die without any warning, and any part can just die with no warning at all. The most likely part to just quit working is the power supply. I've also had a motherboard on a Dell quit working without any warning or problems.

Adam

Yes during the past years 2 of my computers have died without any warning..sad:(

brayden

If the hard drive had a major crash in a sector of the drive where your files are thus preventing recovery, yes Are you sure your files aren't accessible? Reason I ask is I've had users call me and tell me their computer had "died" when in fact it ended up being a monitor had gone out, or a MOBO burned out, or a power supply burned out, etc, and not the hard drive itself. Even if it is the hard drive there are ways to try and recover most, if not all, of your files - just depends on the crash itself.

David

Yep if the files are non-recoverable it is usually the hard drive, it can fail suddenly and you can lose your files.If the the motherboard fails the hard drive is usually fine. If the files are important you can send the drive to specialist data recovery experts where they can rebuild the drive and recover what they can but they are not cheap. All hard drives fail eventually, some sooner some later but they all fail eventually so take regular backups - even backing up to a flash drive is better than nothing

Anonymous

Yes, my computer did that last year.

Jill

Unfortunately yes. Back up what you care about.

Lars

Yes. Do backups from now on.

The_Doc_Man

Wife's system died but gave us a warning, enough so that we did a backup. A couple of days later it bit the big one cold and no chance of resuscitation. We were able to recover most of what we needed from the backup so it wasn't QUITE as bad as it could have been. At most she lost a few days of work.

James S

Last year I had two failures. One the 8 year old power supply blew. Month later my 120GB SSD was no longer detected and my files on that along with the O/s was lost temporary. But yes a failure can happen at any time.

Jamin

Computers usually die without warning. What's nice is the rare times when you can catch the part failing before it actually does.

Anonymous

I've NEVER had a computer say "Guess what I'm going to do to you tomorrow?" I've always woken up & everything was fine until suddenly it wasn't fine. I now keep ALL my important docs, pics, music , & videos copied to an external drive so WHEN the computer crashes I still have my important stuff!!!

Beddra

Yes a Computer can crash and anything on earth can be destroyed.

Smokies Hiker

Of course it can. Anything mechanical can fail at any time. It's this possibility that causes people to schedule routine backups of their personal computer files on a separate external hard drive.

Vince

If any computer just up and fails without warning, it's probably going to be an electrical problem.

Frank

Well, technically speaking the entire computer itself wouldn't just die. Instead, a critical component such as a hard drive or a motherboard could just suddenly fail, and do. As has been said, there's only two types of hard drives: ones that have failed, and ones that will fail.

Rajni

Yes computer may fail thus we should store our data on c drive

Connor Clark

There's a few things, but without knowing your setup it's hard to say. Just one component could have failed, causing the whole PC to be bricked. Your hard drive might still work. If it's a desktop, find a way to get it out of the case and disconnected from the rest of the computer. You can reconnect it to anyone elses computer, and sitll access all of your files. Unfortunately, just saying your computer 'died' doesn't help much for options. Defintiely worth a shot to try the hard drive on a different computer though!

Steven

If you don't know anyone who understands computers then take it to a data recovery store where they will recover as much of your files as possible.

StuntmanMike

Mine does from time to time

Anonymous

I think so . It happened to the computer we had when I was child .

Kellie

G

subash vt

Your files should still be accessable from Hard dusk