Methods are provided for both single modal and multimodal fault diagnosis. In a method, a fault fingerprint is constructed based on a fault event using an invariant model. A similarity matrix between the fault fingerprint and one or more historical representative fingerprints are derived using dynamic time warping and at least one convolution. A feature vector in a feature subspace for the fault fingerprint is generated. The feature vector includes at least one status of at least one system component during the fault event. A corrective action correlated to the fault fingerprint is determined. The corrective action is initiated on a hardware device to mitigate expected harm to at least one item selected from the group consisting of the hardware device, another hardware device related to the hardware device, and a person related to the hardware device.