If HDD crashes, is data on ALL partitions corrupted, or just inaccessible?

Hello,

I have a newbie question.
I have a 1TB external HDD that I want to partition into 4 x 250GB sizes.
I've heard from people that if one partition gets corrupted, the others are fine (you'll have to use data recovery software, but the data itself will not be corrupted, just inaccessible because the drive failed in some way).
On the other hand, I've also heard that if the drive "crashes", that all data might be lost, regardless of the partitioning.

Now, I can understand if the drive in question was the drive in the computer and was running the OS...if that crashed then it would make sense that you wouldn't be able to get to any separate partitions and would therefore have to do data recovery software. But if we're talking about an External HDD that is just a storage HDD and one of the 4 partitions goes south, will that really affect the integrity of the data from the other partitions?

Thanks,

jman995s

If the hard drive goes bad then all the partitions are taken with it.

Eric559 said:

If the hard drive goes bad then all the partitions are taken with it.

Click to expand...

That's not the answer I was hoping for. ;D

What is the chance that Data Recovery Software will work? (i.e.: if there's only a couple of ways a drive can fail, will which way your drive failed determine how much data you can recover?.....or it's just a crap-shoot once your drive goes kaput?).

Thanks,

Jman995x

Data Recovery Software is kind of hit or miss. If the drive physically fails then you can have some trouble recovering data.

If it's really really important information I would back it up again on either another external drive or a DVD.

It depends on the type of failure of the drive.

If it is due to logical errors, then the other partitions are typically OK.

Any other type of failure takes down the entire drive with it.

Here is a pretty simple explanation.

You should, however, be concerned with any type of failure. If you have data that you can't afford to loose, or can't afford to pay out a couple of thousand dollars or more to get back - invest the hundred bucks in another external drive and consider off-site backup as well.

bobtomay said:

It depends on the type of failure of the drive.

If it is due to logical errors, then the other partitions are typically OK.

ANy other type of failure takes down the entire drive with it.

Here is a pretty simple explanation.

Click to expand...

Thanks bobtomay. Great link.