However, things can become very bad if the buggy software has admin privileges and access to system files. In such cases, corruption tends to be limited to the files accessed by the buggy software. Software bugs: Files stored on a healthy hard drive can become corrupted because of software bugs.

Anything from regular wear and tear to minuscule debris floating inside the hard drive enclosure can result in read/write issues and cause hard drive corruption and errors. Read/write issues: Traditional spinning hard drives are complex electro-mechanical devices that rely on the interaction of platters traveling anywhere from 5,400 to 12,000 RPM and delicate read/write heads hovering just a few nanometers above them.There are many reasons why your external hard drive may trigger the “You need to format the disk before you can use it” pop-up window, and you need to understand at least the most common ones to determine the best data recovery approach.

Tip: Don’t Forget to Frequently Back Up Your Data.

Symptoms of External Hard Drive Corruption.

Recover Your Files with Data Recovery Software How to Restore Data from External Hard Drive Without Formatting?.

Disk formatting never ends