How to Change a Laptop Hard Drive

If you want to change or upgrade laptop hard drive, follow this instruction :

click for watch youtube video

Materials Needed:

- Screwdriver
- laptop hard drive
- backup software (optional)
- backup CDs or DVDs

Step 1

The first step in changing the hard drive is finding the right one. Most laptop hard drives sold nowadays follow the 2.5-inch-wide hard drive form factor and have about 4,200 to 7,200 rpm. Having the right hard drive for your laptop is crucial for it to work properly and safely, so it is best to consult your laptop’s operational manual first before going out and buying a new hard drive.

Step 2

Once you have purchased a new hard drive, the next step is to back up the files from your old laptop drive into the new one. You can either do this by using file backup software or by transferring the old files onto a CD, DVD or a portable storage device. You can also use online file backup services such as MozyHome Online Backup (www.mozy.com) to store your data until the new drive is installed.

Step 3

Remove the laptop from the plug and detach the battery to avoid electrical damage to yourself and to the laptop's motherboard when replacing the hard drive.

Step 4

Search for a drive release mechanism or a removable panel on the back part of the laptop. A typical laptop drive is usually found at the side or bottom of the chassis and is released either by pressing a lock and unlock button or unscrewing the drive from the laptop. However, if you are unsure on how to remove the drive, read the laptop’s manual for instructions.

Step 5

Install the new drive on the laptop in a reverse manner of the old hard drive's removal. If the laptop utilizes a slide-in drive mechanism, it will slide without a hitch and make a faint clicking sound when the connectors are properly set. However, if the drive sits loosely in a panel located on the laptop's bottom, you need to first insert one edge in order for it to fit snugly. If you experience any resistance when installing the new drive, do not force it in. Always look for possible obstructions and make certain that all the guiding rails are installed properly and the screws are fitted correctly.

Step 6

When the drive has been properly installed, turn the laptop on. The laptop BIOS should immediately detect the new hard drive.

Try it ^^

Hard Drive Buying Guide

Although hard drives are among the most popular upgrades for personal computers, buying one these days isn't as easy as it used to be. In addition to storage space, there are many other factors you need to consider before choosing this vital PC component. Thankfully for consumers, the cost of Hard Drive or any storage system for that matter-is at an all time low.

Speed- A hard drive's read speed is a measure of how fast it can deliver data to the motherboard. The general rule of thumb is the higher the rotational speed of the drive, the more data it can read and write at once. Keep in mind that the rotational or spindle speed (measured in RPM) is the main factor related to the hard drive's performance.

For desktop computers, 7,200 rpm seems to be the standard among most users, and 5,400 rpm is probably the lowest you should consider. Although 10,000 rpm drives are gradually becoming more commonplace, they're a little on the expensive side. Of course, hard drives are available even faster than these, but they usually require a different type of connectivity. On the other hand, laptops tend to have hard drives with slower read speeds, which produce less heat and consume less power.

Another factor that affects performance is the total amount of buffer on the drive, which is an amount of RAM that frequently stores accessed data. Because RAM is faster at transferring data than the drive head operation, it boosts the overall speed of the drive. Thus, a greater amount of buffer means less physical drive operation.

Storage Space- In today's PC market, it's no longer feasible to settle for a hard drive with less than one gigabyte (GB) of storage space. In fact, chances are you'll have a difficult time finding a hard drive of that capacity. Nowadays, the minimum appears to be about 20GB, while the standard for an average family is somewhere between 80 and 100GB.

For those involved in multimedia work or who consider themselves an extreme gamer, a 160GB drive is a more suitable choice. If you run a business with inventory programs or have high-memory applications such as DVD home movies, bigger is better and definitely worth the extra money. Even if you don't think you'll use the space, super-sizing your hard drive is never a bad idea.

  

Interface- Now that you're familiar with the speed and capacity features on a hard drive, the next aspect to focus on is the interface, or how it connects to your system. In general, SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) and IDE (or ATA) drives are the most common in small business and home computers. You might come across SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) connectivity, but these are generally used on servers in professional environments. There are numerous speeds available for IDE interfaces, ranging from ATA/33 to ATA/133. The number signifies the maximum bandwidth in megabytes per second (MB/sec) that the interface can handle. For example, an ATA/100 interface can support 100 MB/sec. The most important thing you need to do is make sure the hard drive description matches up with your computer's interface.

Another interface worth mentioning is RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), which allows you to group all of your hard disks together so your CPU sees them as a single unit. Of course, this option is only available to those who have more than one drive. The advantage here is speed. As your system takes turns addressing each drive, you'll get some healthy performance gains. However, this can be a little risky because if one drive goes down, they all go down.

Maintenance & care- Once you've made a decision and properly installed the hard drive, there are a few routine maintenance tasks you can perform that will go a long way. For starters, keep your system cool at all times. You should never put your CPU in an enclosed cabinet or any sort of warm, confined space. If you live in a hot area, you may want to get an extra fan just for your computer system.

You should also dust off your PC every so often and spray the openings with canned air. Also, don't set your tower on the floor, especially carpeted floors, since it's more likely to collect dust. If the hard drive is making noise, check the mounting. Usually a clicking noise means a crash is imminent or it hasn't been installed properly. So if the hard drive is new, it's probably mounted incorrectly and needs to be fixed. As a general rule, it should be installed flat, whether it's horizontal or vertical doesn't really matter.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you should protect and manage your drives by installing archive or recovery software. Essentially, hard drives are the core of your PC, so don't take any chances. In addition to installing security and utilities software, consider burning a permanent copy of all your documents and files onto some kind of storage media, such as CDs or DVDs. Keep these backup files in a safe place somewhere away from your house.

With a little common sense and proper care, your hard drive will run like a dream for an extraordinarily long time. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of this technology and are aware of the main factors to consider before making a decision. So take the time to evaluate your options, and you'll be well on your way to purchasing a new hard drive.

Hard Drive Recovery: Logical and Physical

Hard drive recovery is the process of extracting data with the help of software utilities or disk internals level operations plus software tools from logically or physically corrupted hard drive. The best practice is to create a disk image before carrying out any recovery. A disk image is an exact copy of a hard drive or an affected partition/volume. It is created to avoid any data loss during the recovery procedure. We should always maintain an updated data backup on a secondary storage device like an external hard drive to avoid any recovery requirements. If we have all the data backed up, we can simply perform a clean reinstall and restore the data as per our last directory structure. In addition to this we should use hard drives with highest MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating and S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) support. We need to enable the S.M.A.R.T option in system BIOS (Basic Input Output System) to make it check the hard drive for any physical issues and proactively inform us.

A hard drive is divided into various sub-parts. They can be broadly divided as moving and non-moving components. The moving components are: Spindle Motor and Spindle, Read/Write Head, Actuator Arm, Head Actuator and Platters. The non-moving components are: 1.) Hard Disk Controller 2.) Head/Disk Assembly 3.) PCB (Printed Circuit Board) 4.) Input/Output Connector etc.

The Hard drive Recovery can be done by following these two approaches as per logical or physical drive failure:

i.) Hard Drive Recovery Software: These are utilities that are developed based on file system structure information to enable the software to find the files, file signature information to recognize the file header and footer and advanced scanning algorithms to efficiently scan the hard drive. A home user can easily use these Software to scan his hard drive after data loss. Some data recovery software also offer bootable media like CD or DVD to boot the system from them in case the system is not able to boot. We need to attach an external hard drive (USB/Firewire: IEEE 1394) or flash drive (USB). We can boot the system using the bootable media and scan the hard drive. We can even preview the lost files in good quality data recovery software and then save the files in the external hard drive or flash drive.

ii.) Hard Drive Recovery Service:  The Hard Drive Recovery service for of lost data is carried out by Data Recovery experts with rich industrial experience and exposure to the hard disk internals. Such recovery procedures often deal with dismantling the hard drive and repairing or even replacing certain components like the read/write head, actuator arm if they have failed. The Hard Drive Recovery is performed under sterilized environment of Clean rooms. The lab environment of Clean rooms offer controlled temperature, pressure, humidity and no dust particles to ensure maximum protection to hard disk internals.

The data that we save in the hard drive actually gets stored on the platters. The less these platters are the easier it is to recover the lost data. In case, a platter has physically failed has developed physical bad sectors we cannot retrieve our lost data from that platter and the area affected by physical bad sectors will become unavailable for recovery due to unreadable media. Such physical bad sectors cannot be repaired or removed like the logical bad sectors.

Hard drives offer large storage capacity and are very cost effective as compared to other storage media. Today hard drives are available in the market up to 2 TB of storage. When we delete data in any operating system like Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS or Linux, the files don't get deleted in actual. It is just the file reference that gets removed by the operating system. In other words, the files still remain on the hard drive though we cannot access them using the operating system. The same is true in case of lost or corrupted data but the corrupted data files need to be repaired as well.

The partition or volume loss also follows the same rule that is the data still resides in the partitions or volumes but we cannot access them. The common reasons behind such errors are system software conflicts, erroneous deletion, operating system warning related to partition health, virus infection etc. If we face any of the above issues and the hard drive data becomes inaccessible, we should not use the hard drive any further other than Data Recovery from it in order to avoid any disk overwriting. After the lost files get replaced by any erroneous user operations like overwriting the drive with some new files like by a paste operation, it becomes impossible to recover the files as their start and end points get changed by the new files.

What to Do After a Hard Drive Crash

It's catastrophic when a disaster of hard drive crash strikes your computer. The aftermath can range in scope from a few corrupted files to the loss of the whole enchilada. If you have a bad hair day and become a victim of hard drive crash, there is bad news and good news for you: the bad news is that your important files, valuable photos and so on are all gone; the good news is that you still have a good chance to get them back taking the steps as follows!

Data Recovery Step 1: Buy a New Hard Drive
When you lose data during a hard drive crash, it typically means your hard drive—at least in part—is trashed. Moreover, although it's often possible to get some hard drives working again, it's best to start fresh with a new, more reliable hard drive, rather than continue risking more data loss.

Data Recovery Step 2: Create "Master" and "Slave" Drives
Once you've purchased and installed your new hard drive, you'll want to reload your operating system onto it. The next step is to install your new drive as your master (or primary) hard drive and reassign your original hard drive as a slave (or secondary) drive-this allows you to run your computer from your new Harddrive but still gives you access to your original.

Data Recovery Step 3: Attempt to Recover Lost Data
After you have your computer up and running, you can attempt to recover the data off your slave drive by using data recovery software. This kind of software such as wGXe data recovery professional is designed professionally to recover data that's been deleted during a crash or was stored in sectors of a hard drive that have become damaged. Computer level in this field is advancing rapidly day by day and till nowadays, data recovery utilities can do data recovery work perfectly no matter what reasons for the data loss are. What's more, such software is easy-to-use and does not require any specialized knowledge or software operating experience. Although the Computer novice may require help performing some of the aforementioned steps, doing so can help you turn a moment of total, data-loss devastation into pure, data-recovery delight.

Friendly reminder: If you have any difficulty using the above recommened software wGXe data recovery professional, you can log on to its official website(http://www.wgxe.com/ ) for using tips.

Thanks to the above "trilogy", especially the help of wGXe data recovery professional, I believe your headache over data loss may be greatly relieved or spared.

Recover Data From Formatted Hard Drive

During this formatting we sometime format the wrong drive or we forget to take backup of  important files. Or by accidentally formatting the whole drive instead of formatting a single drive, I have committed this mistake earlier.

So let’s start the process of recovering data, I would be using Stellar FAT & NTFS Data Recovery Software to recover from formatted drive.

Download the demo version from http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm and install it in separate drive. And Follow these steps:-

Caution: Never save the data to the partition or drive from where you are recovering data, as it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss!!!

Click the Select 'Physical Disk' button on the Icon  Toolbar

• A dialog box appears listing the physical disk(s) available.

• Select the physical disk that contains the formatted logical drive.

• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Search for logical drives' option.

• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Advance Search' option. (This process may take some time).

• Select the formatted logical drive from the list.

• Phoenix analyses the drive data structures and file system attributes and displays the directory tree.

• Some data structures are critically damaged after a drive format. It is HIGHLY recommended that you should use 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' option under 'Tools' menu to recover all the files and folders lost after drive format (This process may take some time).

• After 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' search process is complete you will find all the files and directories in the tree.

• Select 'Change Linking Mode' option from 'Tools' menu and further change the linking mode to Contiguous.

• Then select the file(s) and folder(s) you wish to recover and choose option 'Recover Selected' from toolbar.

I am sure by now you must have seen your lost data. If you could see the lost files then go for the full version otherwise I would recommend you to try this http://www.stellarinfo.com/file-recovery-software.htm . This is the advance version of Fat & NTFS Data Recovery software which works on file signature search.

Raid Server Fails ?

Raid server failure is one of the dreaded work hazards you may have to face sometimes at your workplace. You tend to become incapable and powerless when you are unable to access data with a click.

Data on a RAID array or volume can becomes inaccessible due to any of the following reasons:
• A faulty RAID controller
• Multiple hard drive crash
• Malfunctioning upgrade or faulty striping
• Defects with the MFT mount points.
• RAID controller failure or configuration changed
• Adding incompatible hard drives
• Hardware conflicts
• Software corruption
• Virus infection, software and operating system upgrades
In these above conditions, the following steps should be taken immediately to increase chances of getting critical files back:
• Shutdown the server and turn off the system. Do not try to reboot again. This may cause serious damage to your hard drive.
• Do not attempt to recover data by yourself, friends or PC repair shops. This may result in permanent loss.
• Do not continue to attempt a forced rebuild if you have already replaced a failed drive and tried to rebuild the array, but still can't access your data. This may wipe out your data. RAID data recovery utilities and software are not designed to restore data or rebuild RAID arrays from failing hard drives. This requires specialized equipment and professional training.
• Swapping hard drives or re-ordering drives in a multiple drive RAID array may cause overwriting the striping and parity. This makes it nearly difficult to reconstruct your RAID array and salvage your company's vital data.
• Seeking professional help from professionally trained data recovery engineers is the sanest solution. Most data can be recovered from crashed hard drives and malfunctioning RAID Server by these experts only.
What do Professional data recovery engineers do?
Professional data recovery engineers have specialized equipment, a thorough knowledge of hex, drive structures, MFT mount points and offsets.
The Professional engineers’ initial diagnosis determines whether each media device is accessible to their lab equipment. From all the data accessible to them from each media, they make a raw image onto a new media to help them analyse and assess the data loss. If some of the media is difficult to get hold of, they will test the components and closely check its internal condition to assess the level of physical damage sustained. The damaged components include electronics, read/write heads, magnets, drive motors and head assemblies.
The raw images of the entire server’s media are used for logical recovery by examining the low-level data sectors. Determination of both the exact layout of volumes, which span or are striped across multiple drives, is a must. Necessary fixes to the file system structures are to be decided upon to get access to important data.
Servers that work on multiple drives are usually “destriped” onto a different media so that file system repairs can be done and the data files retrieved. It may be necessary to extract data directly from one or more fragments of the destriped image.
Professional programmers in this field have created a full set of software tools used by data recovery engineers to analyse, destripe, fix & recover data from raw images drives to virtually all operating systems. The Validity of information is checked once a recovery has been successfully performed, and file lists created.
A file recovery list is produced when your data is recovered. You can verify that your critical files are recoverable. The process usually takes 3-5 days though emergency data recovery services are also available.

Reinstall Your Windows In 10 Minutes

How many times did you have to reinstall your Windows operating system because an application you had installed messed up your system and made it keep displaying erros? It can happen often especially if you are trying many applications on your computer,
The easiest and most simple solution would naturally be the default Windows System Restore tool but, and this is where comes a big but, this tool does not always work as expected, sometimes giving you more headaches than if you had just formatted your drive and reinstalled it.
Well, if this is the case one good and solid solution would be having a backup copy of your newly installed Windows saved and stored either on another partition of your hard disk or on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc depending on the Windows version you are using. As a comparative idea Windows 7 would require a double layer DVD disc to be backed up with drivers, an antivirus, video codecs and such regularly used software.

The software i'm proposing to be used is Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169, an application that i have personally tried and which i have been using to restore my Windows to its former glory in just a few minutes without having to reinstall all the drivers and programs i need for my usual use of the computer.

Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition is as its name says a free software designed to offer a full backup and recovery solution for the data from your computer including the system files.
The interface of the software is well designed providing access to the powerful features included through the use of wizard forms that will make the use of the program more user friendly and it will make it feel less complicated even if the program contains plenty of powerful and numerous tools.

Hard disk formatting and file trasferring is also possible making Paragon Backup & Recovery a suitable software for migrating your information from one hard disk to another as well as deleting information for a drive that is no longer necessary.

The file systems that are supported cover the most used formats available on the market giving you full read/write access to FAT16/FAT32 partitions; full read/write access to NTFS (Basic and all five types of Dynamic Disks) under Windows 95/98/ME, Linux and PTS DOS.

Compressed NTFS files are also supported. You can also perform full read/write operations by having access to Ext2FS/Ext3FS partitions under all versions of Windows, DOS 5.0 and later. Basic partitioning operations (create, format, delete) are available for Linux Swap.

In order to have the program fully functional my advice is to created a DVD recovery disk which can then be easily used to backup and restore a disk partition or data from it even if your Windows is no longer working.
You will just need to boot up the recovery disc and then point it to the backup files you previously created. In just a few minutes your backup will be restored and you will have a brand new Windows ready to be used without having to go through the time consuming process of reinstalling all your system drivers and favorite applications.

You can find Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169 on our newly created website along with many other useful tools and application by simply following this link: www.bstdownload.com
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169

How to Connect IDE Hard Drive to Laptop / Notebook

USB is a glorious thing. It allows you to hook up a wide variety of products ranging from temperature monitoring equipment to keyboards and mice to headphones to drives and far beyond.
IDE hard drives were the standard internal Hard Drive for desktop computers until the mid 2000's, when they began to be replaced by SATA hard drives. As a result, many computer users are left with old IDE hard drives when they upgrade old computers with a new laptop or desktop. It is possible to connect an internal desktop IDE hard drive to a laptop externally with the use of a USB to IDE adapter, essentially transforming the internal IDE drive into an external hard drive.

1. Set the IDE hard drive next to the laptop, near a USB port.
   
2. Plug the appropriate IDE connection on the adapter into the back of the old hard drive.
   
3. Plug the power cord that came with the adapter into a wall socket. Pllug the other end of the power adapter into the four-pronged power plug on the back of the hard drive. Wait several seconds for the hard drive to spin up.
   
4. Plug the USB cord from the adapter into the laptop. On the laptop, the drive should appear automatically as an external drive, just as if you'd plugged in a USB flash drive or external hard drive.
   

Attention : Using an IDE to USB adapter is a useful way to turn old hard drives into backup storage devices. Many IDE to USB adapters work for both 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives (desktop and laptop sized drives) and some can also hook up SATA hard drives.

Laptop hard drive will not spin up

You have problem like this : The laptop turns on but the hard drive will not spin up. You cannot hear any normal working noise coming from the hard dive. The hard drive appears to be dead.

Possible cause:

1. Hard drive failure.
2. Motherboard failure.

Possible troubleshooting steps and repair solution:

Most likley this problem is related to the hard drive failure and here’s what you can do to test the drive.
- Remove the hard drive from the laptop and connect it to an external USB enclosure
- Connect this enclosure to any other working computer (laptop or desktop). If the hard drive still doesn’t spin, you have a bad hard drive.

If the hard drive works fine when connected to the external enclosure but doesn’t work when connected to the laptop, most likely you have a failed hard drive controller on the motherboard. If that’s the case, the whole motherboard had to be replaced.
In some laptops the hard drive connects to the motherboard via a cable. In models like that there is a chance that you have a failed cable. Try replacing the cable first.

Install Second Hard Drive in Linux Ubuntu

So you’ve been using linux for awhile now, and it’s time to install another hard drive for some more storage? Maybe it’s finally time to wipe out a Window’s or NTFS partition.
I’m going to assume that you already know how to install a hard drive. I’m also going to assume that you knew how to make it a master or slave, you’ve checked to make sure that it shows up in bios, and that it was intalled properly. It also assumes you’ve already formatted your drive in linux ext3 format, using a tool like gParted, or something similar.
If you’ve done all of these things, then boot up your system – and let’s get going. I’m using Ubuntu linux – formerly Breezy 5.10, but I’ve recently upgraded to Dapper 6.06.
Open up a terminal window and run the following command:
$ sudo fdisk -l
You should get a listing of the hard drives installed on your computer. There will be a little paragraph for each one that will look like this:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 4678 37576003+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 4679 4865 1502077+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 4679 4865 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris

In windows disk drives are assigned an alphabet letter, and traditionally – floppy disk drives were a: and / or b:, and the main hard drive was c:/. Then the first cdrom or dvdrom was d:/, and any additional drives would be e:, f:, and so on. In linux it’s kind of the same, but in a different format. All hard drives installed are listed in the ‘device’ or /dev directory. All drives start with the appendage “hd” (I think for ‘hard drive’).
So, if you have 2 hard drives and one cdrom – then you have 3 devices. You have a hda, hdb, and hdc. The number of partitions comes next. If your main hard drive is linux – and you have 3 partitions, then you’ll have a hda1, hda2, and hda5. The partition numbers aren’t in a logical order – hda5 is always the swap partition.
So know, if you see your hard drive listed in the sudo fdisk -l, then you know you can mount it. Your computer has a startup file that tells it what to mount when it boots. We need to edit this file and add the new drive.
But first we have to create a directory. We have to create what’s called a “mount point”. A mount point is a virtual directory. It’s like saying – mount that hard drive from this directory.
The most logical place to create the mount point for the new hard drive is either the /mnt or /media folder. Many would say that /mnt is the only place it should be – the mount folder. However, Ubuntu always mounts all dvd, cd, and removable media in /media. I chose to make my mount point here for just that very reason.
Think of what you want to call the new mount point name. Just make sure you don’t use any special characters or spaces in the name. I called mine linuxstore. Now, in terminal run the following command substituting my mount point name for yours:
$ sudo mkdir /media/linuxstore
Next, here’s one of the most important things….and somethng that I didn’t find in any of the articles on the web when I was trying to figure out how to do this. You have to make the mount point directory ‘writable’. In other words, you have to give it writable permissions. They have to be world-writable permissions since you aren’t a member of the ‘root’ group in which all mount points are owned.
So, now you want to run the following command (again substituting my mount point name for yours):
$ chmod 777 /media/linuxstore
If you want to mount your drive right away, and you don’t care if it’s mounted automatically every time you boot – then in terminal run the following command:
$ mount /dev/hdd1 /media/linuxstore
There! Now you are temporarily mounted. But…if you want it to be permanent, you need to edit your filesystem tab file. Run the following command in terminal:
$ gedit /etc/fstab
The text editor window will appear with the fstab file loaded up. You will see something that looks kind of like this:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /media/hdb1 ext3 defaults 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

All you have to do is add a new line for the new drive…
I will add the following line to my fstab for my new drive:

/dev/hdd1 /media/linuxstore ext3 defaults 0 0

Just be sure to substitute both the name of my hard drive for yours (mine is hdd1, is yours hdc1 or another name?), and my mount point hame for yours. Then save the file.
Now you will have the new hard drive mounted and writable both every time you boot. In Ubuntu, you should find your new drive listed under your ‘Places’ menu. To make the hard drive show up right now, without rebooting – just reload your fstab file with the following command:
$ sudo mount -a
Now you’re done! Enjoy your new storage drive in Linux!

Hard Drive Failure Diagnose

Your hard drive, or also called harddisk, is a gigantic diskette in your computer. It is one disk big enough to store you Operating System, games and programs. Without it, your PC is just an empty shell.

Check Your BIOS
Better beware of older systems with large drives. If you have an older motherboard, your BIOS might not recognize harddrives larger than 2.1 GB. Hopefully, your BIOS is EPROM which means although read only (noticed the ROM?) it can be edited by authorized editors. Nearly all newer motherboards support that. All you need to do is to go online, go to your motherboard manufacturer’s website and try to download a flash BIOS update. Install it and it should be done.


Are You FAT Enough?
If you have a large capacity drives with more than 2.1 GB, you might have a problem. Windows 95 itself will only recognize a partition with not more than 2.1 GB. You need FAT32. With FAT32, you can have one large capacity hard drive without partitioning. You will also save some space with FAT32. In short, larger hard drives require FAT32.

Hard Drive Maintenance

Your hard drive is the workhorse of your computer, but do you really know what it’s up to in there? Here’s a brief description of how your hard drive works, and what you can do to make sure it keeps working the way it should.


How it works
When you save a file to your hard drive, it is magnetically recorded onto a platter inside your hard drive. Most hard drives have several platters mounted on a spindle that allows them to spin as fast as 15,000 times per minute. Each two-sided platter is mounted on a single arm with a slider that lets the heads move across the surface of the platter to access data.The amount of data each platter can hold is usually measured in Tracks Per Inch, where a track equals one concentric ring around a disk.
Because of the amount of data that can be stored in a single track, each track is divided into sectors, and when you save data to the disk, it is referenced according to its track and sector.

Organize your hard drive
Occasionally your hard drive will make a whirring sound as it searches for a file. This is the sound of the platters spinning as the read heads zoom back and forth to access each sector where the data has been stored. You can speed up this process by periodically “defragging” your hard drive. The Windows Disk Defragmenter utility reorganizes the scattered data on your hard drive to make your files run more efficiently. It also moves the files that you use most often to the beginning of the hard disk where they’ll load faster.

To run Disk Defragmenter in Windows XP, follow these directions:
Click Start > Programs > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.

You should analyze a drive (volume) before defragmenting it. Because defragmenting may take considerable time, this tells you whether you need to take the time to perform this task. Click the Analyze button.
A drive must have at least 15 percent free space for Disk Defragmenter to completely and adequately defragment it. Disk Defragmenter uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15 percent free space, Disk Defragmenter will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.
Click the Defragment button.
To interrupt or temporarily stop defragmenting a volume, click Stop or Pause, respectively. The bottom frame displays a graphical representation of the utilities progress.

Disk Cleanup
Another powerful utility that comes with Windows is Disk Cleanup. This application allows you to easily sort through and delete unused and temporary files, freeing space on your hard drive and speeding up its operation.
To run Disk Cleanup, Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and select Disk Cleanup.
Choose the drive you want to scan from the drop-down menu, and wait while the program calculates how much disk space is available for cleanup.
On the Disk Cleanup tab, check the boxes next to the types of files you want to remove.
Temporary Internet Files are Web pages stored on your hard drive for quick access. Deleting these files will leave intact your Internet browser preferences and bookmarks.
Downloaded Program Files are Java and ActiveX applications downloaded from the Internet to view certain pages.
The Recycle Bin contains files you have deleted from your system. They are not permanently removed until you empty the bin.
Temporary Files are created by some applications to temporarily store data. Typically, the data is deleted when the program closes, and it is safe to delete these files if they have not been modified in over a week. Clicking the View Files button will display the files to be deleted in a separate window.
To remove Windows components or unused programs, click the More Options tab. Clicking the appropriate Cleanup button will open the Add/Remove Programs utility, where you can then select what you would like to delete.

ScanDisk
If you’ve ever turned off your computer without properly shutting down the system (or had to restart after a crash), then you’ve probably seen your computer run a utility called ScanDisk. ScanDisk checks the hard drive for errors and, if it finds any, marks the cluster of sectors containing the error as unusable, so that no data can be written to or read from that portion of the disk.You can also run ScanDisk from within Windows. This allows you to do a more thorough scan of your hard drive and detect errors that might make it difficult or impossible to read or write to the disk.

To run ScanDisk in Windows 98, and Windows Millennium:
Click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > ScanDisk.
Select Thorough under Type of Test.
Click Start to begin the scan.
Windows XP refers to ScanDisk as an “error-checking” tool; to perform error-checking, follow these directions:
Open My Computer, then select the local disk you want to check.
On the File menu, click Properties.
On the Tools tab, under Error-checking, click Check Now.
Under Check Disk options, select the “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” box. ScanDisk should take only a few minutes to run, and should probably be done every two or three months. It will give you a report of the number and types of errors it has found, and can even automatically repair some of these errors.
More serious errors can be repaired by reformatting the drive, if the errors are “soft” errors (which means that the magnetic signal on the disk is weak or the formatting is bad).”Hard” errors, however, refer to actual physical damage to the disk, such as a scratch or a bump, and cannot be repaired.
If you have a large number of hard errors on your disk, you will probably need to replace your hard drive.The average life span for today’s hard drive is between three and five years. Simple maintenance can keep your hard drive running smoothly well past the time it has become obsolete.
Luckily, today’s hard drives rarely fail without a warning given well in advance. All modern disks are equipped with a feature called S.M.A.R.T. that allows real-time analysis and the reporting of any developing problems and potential issues. The big question is: can you read the warnings?
The following free applications take the guesswork out of the equation, and they make it easier for you to diagnose what’s really happening with your Hard Drives.

Disk Heal

• Disk Heal fixes these problems with just one click.
• Fixes Task Manager Inaccessibility
• Fixes Folder Options inaccessibility
• Fixes Registry Editor Inaccessibility
• Fixes File/Folder inaccessibility:
• Has a virus hidden your files/folders and you cannot unhide it, use disk heal to fix this problem.

Emsa Disk Check – CD/DVD/HDD Disk Diagnostic Utility
Emsa Disk Check is a dual-purpose utility, for disk checking (prescan and full disk reading) and also benchmarking. It scans/reads the entire contents of a disk (CD, DVD or hard drive; or even floppy), and it shows any read errors that may appear. In addition, it shows drive speed information, progress statistics and so on. It was designed with simplicity in mind, but ease of use for you.
Emsa DiskCheck main features:

• Useful to quickly and fully scan removable disks like CD, DVD for surface defects like disk scratch problems, bad CD-R/RW DVD-R/RW writes, etc.
• Can check CD-ROM, DVD, hard disks, even floppy disks.
• Useful for benchmarking a drive, be it CD, DVD or HDD.
• Shows ‘locked’ files on disks.
• Useful speed comparison (shows the ‘X’ multiplier speed comparison with CDs and DVDs) with possibility of switching in CD/DVD ‘X’ mode.
• It scans/reads a disk fully until completion or user stop, at the maximal speed available.
• Reports progress, statistics (files, folders, time elapsed, estimated time remaining).
• Reports any errors encountered (error count and log entry for each).
• Prescan accesses the disk table of contents and computes file information, showing the total number of files and folders and total space on disk before running the full scan.

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Knowing about the possible failure of your hard drive means having time to prevent all your data from being lost HDDlife is a program that will allow you to control the health of your hard drive using an intuitive interface. Just run the program and it will show you the list of your disks with the percentage of their health left, as well as their temperature.
Main features:

• Controlling the health of your hard drives using the S. M. A. R. T. technology.
• Constantly monitoring the state of your hard drives in the background mode.
• Displaying the temperature of your hard drives.
• Disk free space info and control.

The current version supports IDE, Serial ATA and SCSI disks with standard controllers, while external, IDE RAID and SCSI RAID controllers are not supported.
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Hard Drive Setting Jumper (seagate)

Setting the Jumpers on a seagate hard drive

Cable Select. The drive is configured at the factory for a cable select setting. This allows the drive to assume the proper role of master or slave based on the connector used on the cable (see the UltraATA cable figure below). For the cable select setting to work properly, the cables you are using must support the cable select feature. Current UltraATA cables with the 3 colored connectors do support this feature.
Master or single drive. If you are installing your Seagate hard drive as the only drive in the system or if it will be the primary boot drive for the system, the jumper should be set on pins 7 and 8.
Drive as slave. If you are installing the drive as an additional drive in your system, the drive should be set as slave by removing all jumpers. Remember to confirm that the original drive is set to a master position (If the limit capacity jumper is required for your installation it will need to remain in place).
Drive as master with a non-ATA-compatible slave (Seagate® drives only). Set a jumper on pins 5 and 6 and a jumper on pins 7 and 8. Use this jumper setting only if the drive does not work as a master.

Cable Select Configuration Options for PC Systems:

If you have determined that your system and all other IDE devices support and are using Cable Select, please use the following information to connect your IDE drive. The jumper should always be on pins B-D for Cable Select installations.

Installing the new drive as the only drive in the system:
If you are connecting your drive as the only IDE drive on the cable, please ensure that a jumper is connected to pins B-D on the 2.5″ drive. Simply connect the drive to the end of the cable.

Installing the new drive as the primary (Master) drive:
If you are connecting your drive as the primary (Master) drive on the cable with another IDE drive, please ensure that a jumper is connected to pins B-D on the 2.5″ drive. Please ensure that the second (Slave) IDE drive is jumpered as Cable Select as well. Connect the primary (Master) 2.5″ drive to the end of the cable and the second (Slave) drive to the middle connector of the cable.

Installing the new drive as the secondary (Slave) drive:
If you are connecting your drive as the secondary (Slave) drive on the cable with another IDE drive, please ensure that a jumper is connected to pins B-D on the 2.5″ drive. Connect the 2.5″ drive to the middle of the cable and other (Master) drive to the end of the cable.

Master/Slave Configuration Options for PC Systems:

   

 Installing the new drive as the only drive in the system:

 If you are connecting your drive as the only IDE device on the cable, no jumper is needed on the 2.5″ drive. Connect the 2.5″ drive to the end of the cable.

Installing the new drive as the primary (Master) drive:
If you are connecting your drive as the Master drive on the cable with another IDE device, no jumper is needed on the 2.5″ drive. Ensure to configure the jumper on the secondary (Slave) IDE device as Slave. Connect the primary (Master) 2.5″ drive to the end of the cable, and the secondary (Slave) device to the middle of the cable.

Installing the new drive as the secondary (Slave) drive:
If connecting your drive as the secondary drive on the cable with another IDE device, please ensure that a jumper is connected to pins A-B on the 2.5″ drive. Configure the jumper on the primary IDE device as Master. Connect the 2.5″ (Slave) drive to the middle of the cable, and the Master IDE device to the end of the cable.

The boot selection failed.... Error?

Its a well known fact that if one or more required boot files are found to be missing or corrupt, a Windows

system might fail to boot. Such problems can be resolved by using Windows installation

disc. But still if it is not resolved, the the only solution remains is to install the operating system, which causes data loss.
Now, if no valid data backup is available, you need to use windows data recovery utilities.
Lets consider to boot a Windows Vista or Windows 7 based system and it fails to boot displaying the below error message on screen:
“The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible”
It is 0xc000000f error code. You cannot boot into the system even at subsequent attempts of restarting the system.
Reasons:

1. One of more Windows boot items, like MBR, BCD store etc., are missing or corrupt
   
2. Incorrect BIOS settings for the boot device, usually hard drive. This might occur if you have recently performed some changes in system BIOS settings.
   
   

Solution
If after changing the BIOS settings, Windows is unable to boot, then configure BIOS to default fail-proof settings and after that set hard drive as the primary boot device. And if it is not OK then we should repair Windows startup files using windows recovery environment as follows:

• Insert Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation disc into the computer and boot the system
  
• Press any key for starting the repair process when prompted for
  
• You need to then select the time, language and currency and the desired input method
  
• Click 'Next' and select 'Repair your computer' option
  
• The 'System Recovery Options' dialog box appears, at which you need to select the Windows installation you need to repair. Click 'Next'.
  
• You can then select the 'Startup Repair' option. Instead, you can also run 'Bootrec.exe' through 'Command Prompt'
  
  

If the above steps fail to boot Windows successfully, then it is suggested to reinstall the operating system and use your recent data backup to restore the lost data. If no data backup is available, use windows data recovery software for extracting the data. These software are embedded with high-end scanning algorithms. The software also enable you to perform comprehensive Partition Recovery in all cases of logical crashes.

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How to Correct S.M.A.R.T. failure in Hard Drive Error

S.M.A.R.T. or Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology is a monitoring system for computer hard disks to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the with the aim of anticipating failures. It keeps check on the internal health of the hard drive. It checks the hard drive upon certain factors of reliability like heat, spin-rate noise level, damaged sectors etc. Thus we can take preventive steps on the basis of S.M.A.R.T. reports and rely on it.

The hard disks with SMART may prompt an error at each startup, like:

“WARNING: Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent. SMART failure predicted on primary slave.”

The user should not ignore this error message. If not taken care of, the failure is inevitable and then comes the need for Hard Drive Recovery solutions. If taken care of, such hard drives give enough time to backup data. The hard drive needs to be replaced and if user has valid and recent backup, it can be restored with no cost.

If one ignores this SMART warning, it may cost in terms of data loss and in this case hard drive recovery solutions is the ultimate solution. At data recovery services the experts first analyze the failed hard drives and then take the necessary steps in order to retrieve the data from it. After that the service providers

communicate the results with the customers who can agree upon their norms and conditions.

The hard drive recovery experts carry special technical procedures to extract data. Some of these techniques are read/write head replacement, disk mirroring, intermediate hard drive repair, etc.

Stellar Information Systems Ltd. offers one of the best services with Class 100 Clean Rooms, finest data extracting procedures and sophisticated tools. Stellar is the most eminent name in the field of data recovery. Stellar  hard drive recovey software can recover data from all sorts of hard drives and for all interfaces

including SATA, PATA and SCSI.

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How to Partition external Hard Drive

   When you add an external hard drive, you may do so for a number of reasons. But once you have that hard drive installed, creating different partitions for different purposes can expand your available options. Partitioning an external hard drive is just like partitioning an internal hard drive---just be sure that you are careful when you start your partitioning and make sure you are working with the external hard drive and not a drive that you want---partitioning a drive will immediately erase all information on the drive forever.

Step 1:
Check your external hard drive to ensure that there is no data on the hard drive that you want. As soon as you start the partitioning process, all data on that drive will be completely and forever erased.

Step 2:

Run the Microsoft Management Console. This can be started by typing "MMC" in a command prompt window, or just typing "MMC" in the "Start Search" box in the Windows Start menu.

Step 3:

In MMC, add the Disk Management snap-in. This can be done through the File menu by selecting add snap-in. Select "Disk Management" from the list.

Step 4:

Right-click on the disk in the list of disks at the bottom of the snap-in. From this short-cut menu, you will have various options related to the partitioning of the drive. You can expand the partition, delete the partition, or shrink the partition. You can also mark it as the primary partition if you like.

Step 5:

Format the new partitions. Using the same shortcut menu, you should format all the partitions that you wish to use. You can also set their drive letters here if you like, so your operating system will know which drive is which letter

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NTFS and FAT Recovery

File Allocation Table (FAT) or Master File Table (MFT): NTFS recovery and FAT recovery

On older Operating Systems such as Windows 98 there is a storage area known as the 'Root Directory'. This is the place which stores the name of a file, the location of its starting cluster, and the size of the file. In order to find a file the Operating System uses this information to get to the first storage cluster of a file. It then uses a special table at the start of the disk know as the File Allocation Table or FAT to identify the remaining clusters that are used to store the file. It is important to realize that this information is stored completely separate from your file data and is why FAT data recovery is possible.
In newer Operating Systems the FAT and Directory Entry method has been merged and replaced by a single table known as the Master File Table or MFT. Whilst an MFT is more complex, the principal of locating the start of a file and its subsequent storage clusters is essentially the same.

What happens when I delete a file?

Lets look to see what happens when you intentionally delete a file and why it may be possible to bring that file back. When you select a file and press the delete key on a Windows computer the file is sent to the Recycle Bin. You may think of the Windows Recycle Bin as just another fancy storage folder on your hard drive. The 'real' deletion (at least as far as this article is concerned) is what happens when the Recycle Bin is emptied or the deletion bypasses the Windows Recycle Bin altogether.
When a file is deleted the Operating System marks the file name in the MFT with a special character that signifies to the computer that the file has been deleted. The computer now looks at the clusters occupied by that file as being empty and therefore available space to store a new file. What the Windows Operating System does NOT do is go out to the clusters on the hard disk where the files data is actually stored and wipe the contents of these clusters. The deleted file data is still there, but the Computer Operating System no longer knows it exists.
This in fact is the underlying principal of data recovery. It is about finding data that still exists on the hard drive but which currently can't be located by the Operating System. If the clusters containing the data have are, corrupted or physically damaged, then recovering the data they once contained is impossible.
Ok, so my data is still there, but for how long? The answer to this question is completely up to you. The only way that your deleted MFT record or your file data itself will permanently be destroyed is if it is overwritten by other data. This means that any computer activity after the deletion has the potential to permanently erase otherwise recoverable files.
If you are attempting data recovery from your hard drive, if possible connect it to another computer as the slave drive so that the operating system wont be doing a merry dance over you deleted files when you attempt the recovery process. If you use data recovery software, don't install it on the drive on which the files were lost. Better yet, use a floppy disk or CD version if available. If you send your hard drive to a professional data recovery service they should not be working on the original hard drive. They should take a sector copy (an exact copy including all deleted information) of your hard drive and work on this. You may consider doing this yourself. There are a number of programs that will do this, the most common being Norton GHOST. But remember, you must make a complete sector copy of your hard drive to make sure the image includes all the deleted areas of the drive.

Data Recovery by Searching for Deleted MFT Records

Most data recovery programs search for deleted MFT entries to undelete files or unformat drives. These programs usually give a give a probability or hard drive data recovery rating of 'good', 'medium' or 'poor'. What they are actually doing is locating the MFT record for a deleted file and then checking the rest of the MFT records to determine if the clusters that the deleted file occupied are being used by any other file stored on the computer. As only one file can occupy any one cluster on a hard drive, if other files are using your deleted files storage space then it is likely that the original data has been overwritten and permanently destroyed. This recovery technique is usually relatively fast, as all the recovery program has to do is find the deleted file entries in the MFT and then go directly to that location of the hard disk to perform the data recovery. You will see an MFT search when you execute a "Fast Search" using Recover My Files Data Recovery Software.
However, if your MFT is corrupt, defective or has itself been overwritten, this method isn't going to help you get data back even though the file data still remains out on the disk waiting to be found. What you need to do is search unallocated clusters.

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