Quick Fix for “The Request Failed Due to Fatal Device Hardware Error”

The blog highlights “the request failed due to fatal device hardware error” and its impact on your data. Further, it also discusses different methods to fix the error to recover data from the device in the best possible way.

When “the request failed due to fatal device hardware error” occurs, your device turns inaccessible. You may usually encounter this error while attempting to transfer/copy your files and suddenly the Windows OS fails to recognize the input or the output devices. In addition, this error could also be due to a fault in the systems hardware, inappropriate configuration, loose connections, etc.

However few simple troubleshooting steps can resolve the issue in most cases.

Few basic troubleshooting steps:

• Try connecting the device to the computer with different USB cables.
• Sometimes the error can be fixed by updating the drivers.
• Change the drive letter.
• Redo the activities when the error first occurred before installing a new software, updating the drive, etc.

Further, hard drives are bound to fail and no one knows when they will fail; hence, it is ideal to always have an updated backup of your valuable files. Further, if due to any reason you have lost your data, then, in that case, Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows is the perfect software to bring back the lost files. This data recovery software recovers your lost files in three simple steps!

1. Run the software.
2. Scan and Preview the recoverable files.
3. Save the files to the desired location.

Lets also see some other solutions to recover data from the device

One of the most basic troubleshooting method to fix the error is to check the drive’s SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) attributes. There are several other ways also to analyse the hard drive’s status like:

1. Check the SMART attributes.
2. Run an error check.
3. Run Check Disk.
4. Initialize the disk.

1. Check the SMART attributes

You can use WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command-Line), a command-line and scripting interface to check the status of your hard drive health.

In the command prompt box, type in the following command:

“wmic diskdrive get status”

If your hard drive’s status is fine, you would see the status “OK” for the respective drive. However, if the Operating Systems faces some issues during SMART analysis, then it will eventually return the hard drive status as “Bad”, “Unknown”, “Caution”, etc.

If your hard drive’s status runs an error, then it is in the failing process and you should immediately backup all its content. Perhaps, you should consider replacing the failing hard drive with a new one before it dies.

*If your hard drive indicates a SMART error, then you should not wait for its complete failure instead minimize its usage and transfer all its data.

2. Run an Error Check

Disk Error Checking may solve the inaccessibility issue and further boost your computer’s performance. Run Disk Error Checking to check for bad sectors, lost clusters, file system errors, etc. To begin with:

• Right-click on the hard drive and click Properties.
• Click Tools tab and under Error-checking, click Check.

If the system detects an error, then it prompts a message to scan the drive. Once the scanning is complete and there is an error, then you’ll be asked to either restart your system or schedule the error fixing on next restart.

3. Run Check Disk

Diskpart Utility eliminates various disk related issues and is one of the most common troubleshooting steps. It is an important tool for disk maintenance as it not only checks the hard drive that has hardware error but also repairs it as well.

Follow these steps to run Diskpart commands on your hard drive:

Syntax for Check Disk: CHKDSK [volume [[path] filename]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/C] [: size]]

a) Run Command Prompt and type: CHKDSK /F to fix file system errors.

b) In addition, type: CHKDSK /R to scan the hard drive for bad sectors.

• */F Fixes errors on the disk.
• /R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.

4. Initialize the hard drive

If you’re unable to access your hard drive or the Operating System fails to recognize your device, then you need to initialize it. In addition, initializing the drive also eliminates “Disk Unknown Not Initialized” error.

Follow these steps to initialize the hard drive:

• Run Disk Management (In Windows 10/8, type “diskmgmt.msc” to launch Disk Management and in Windows 7, right-click on Computer, select Manage to launch Disk Management).
• Right-click on your hard drive and click “Initialize Disk”.
• Select either MBR (Master Boot Record) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style to initialize the drive.

*Initializing would erase all data stored in the drive, proceed only when you have a backup of files.

Concluding Note

You have to be cautious while operating with Command lines since if improperly used, you will end up zeroing your hard drive, which is the worst case scenario.

However, even in this worse case situation, you can still recover your data. Simply run Stellar Data Recovery Professional and retrieve all your important files. Moreover, as a recommendation, always backup your files and keep a tab on the warning signs of the drive failure.