If your hard drive is having any of these seven symptoms then you must take immediate action to backup your files...
A computer's hard drive is the central storage within the system and its failure will bring all practical functions to a complete halt.
If your PC is experiencing any of the following signs of impeding doom then you must run (not walk) and grab CDs to burn backups of all your essential data.
Sign 1 - You hear high-pitched whining, loud clicking or grinding noises coming from the drive
A normally operating drive will make a smooth "whirling" sound as is spins up or down. But if a drive has a grinding or clicking sounds (the Read/Write heads scraping too close to the magnetic platters), then your drive is sick and is on the way out.
Sign 2 - You see the infamous "Blue Screen of Death", repeatedly
BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) are actually called "Stop" errors and they only appear when your Windows System is experiencing severe software or hardware issues. Often BSODs can cured with a careful "Repair Install" of the Windows operating system or by removal of a bad device driver. But if these software fast fixes don't seem stick, then your hard drive is usually on its last legs
Sign 3 - Your computer keeps re-booting on its own
I admit, I have only seen this problem a few times in my 18+ year career and in all instances it was due to hardware issues. Once it was a dust covered motherboard, and another time an overheating processor. But all the other times it was due to bad drives.
Sign 4 - Your system keeps having frequent freezes or hang ups
You are working along just fine, and then suddenly everything comes to a halt. The program freezes up on you. Your mouse and keyboard seem to stop responding. The only solution is to reboot.
Sign 5 - Error message: hard drive is not formatted
This a fun message that you will get when you start up your machine. You maybe able to restart and get it to boot into Windows a few more times but this error is "fur-sure" sign that you drive is very close to death. And by the way don't try to format the drive! You will lose all your data.
Sign 6 - Error message: boot drive or device not found or drive cannot be accessed
This is another favorite of mine. You can check the CD/DVD trays or the floppy drive to make sure no stray disks are stuck inside. You can also check the BIOS to make sure the system is booting from the hard drive first. If all these tests are no-good, then the drive is a goner.
Sign 7 - Errors: Operating system not found or Missing Operating System
This is a bad one. Even the Microsoft technichal support knowledgebase has only got a few causes for this error message. Basically your PC can no longer detect the hard drive or the drive is too severely damaged to read (DOA).
What to do if your drive has any of these symptoms:
1) First, listen up, if possible, BACKUP YOUR FILES NOW!
2) Create a boot disk and run Windows Scandisk and set it to automatically fix errors. If it finds more than a few bad sectors then see the point above
3) If possible download and use a hard drive diagnostic program. All the major hard drive manufacturers have free utilities on their websites. Repair what you can and see point 1.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
RAW Hard Drive Recovery
Very rarely we come across a situation when we try to retrieve our data from our computer hard drive, but instead of data we get some error messages and the drive is displayed as RAW. In those situations, our important files and data can not be accessed from the RAW drive.
When the hard drive becomes RAW, it might be detected by the following symptoms:
When the hard drive becomes RAW, it might be detected by the following symptoms:
1. "Invalid media type reading drive. Abort, Retry, Fail?" Error message
2. File names contains strange characters.
3. Your operating system may prompt you to format the hard drive. For
example, Windows gives you "Disk is not formatted. Do you want to
Format it now?" error.
4. Hard drive file system is shown as RAW.
5. "Sector not found" error message while accessing any file.
To tackle such situations, the only option we have is to go for RAW Hard Drive Recovery. It is possible with the help of Hard Disk Recovery Software which are designed in a specific manner to meet different user’s Hard Drive Recovery requirements.
Such softwares are capable of extracting our lost, missing or inaccessible hard drive volumes/partitions and data from them.
While selecting Hard Drive Recovery software, we should always bear in mind that not all data recovery softwares can perform RAW Hard Drive Recovery. Most of them require file system references and that are not available because the drive is RAW.
One such Hard Disk Recovery software offered by Stellar Information Systems Limited is the ultimate solution for all your Data Loss problems. This software allows the user to get his precious data back by carrying out RAW Hard Drive Recovery in few simple steps.
With commanding scanning abilities, it gives incredible results. This Hard Drive Recovery software is available for most of the computer operating systems including UNIX, Linux, Novell, Windows and Mac OS.
2. File names contains strange characters.
3. Your operating system may prompt you to format the hard drive. For
example, Windows gives you "Disk is not formatted. Do you want to
Format it now?" error.
4. Hard drive file system is shown as RAW.
5. "Sector not found" error message while accessing any file.
To tackle such situations, the only option we have is to go for RAW Hard Drive Recovery. It is possible with the help of Hard Disk Recovery Software which are designed in a specific manner to meet different user’s Hard Drive Recovery requirements.
Such softwares are capable of extracting our lost, missing or inaccessible hard drive volumes/partitions and data from them.
While selecting Hard Drive Recovery software, we should always bear in mind that not all data recovery softwares can perform RAW Hard Drive Recovery. Most of them require file system references and that are not available because the drive is RAW.
One such Hard Disk Recovery software offered by Stellar Information Systems Limited is the ultimate solution for all your Data Loss problems. This software allows the user to get his precious data back by carrying out RAW Hard Drive Recovery in few simple steps.
With commanding scanning abilities, it gives incredible results. This Hard Drive Recovery software is available for most of the computer operating systems including UNIX, Linux, Novell, Windows and Mac OS.
Friday, September 24, 2010
SATA Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 failure
SATA stands for Serial ATA(Advanced Technology Attachment). It is a storage interface that offers standards for connecting a hard drive to the computer system. SATA interface follows two specifications SATA and SATA II. SATA offers a speed of 1.5 Gbps (or 150 MBps) and SATA II offers 3 Gbps(or 300 MBps). It follows serial signaling technology and hence offers fast data transfer. SATA hard drive provides various advantages over its counterparts including flexibility, less cable-bulk and hot swapping. On the other hand, these fast data accessing and transfer rates become indirectly responsible for hard drive failure. Hard drive may fail to be recognized by the system and hence Hard Drive Recovery becomes necessary.
While failure, SATA hard drives show different error messages together with noise, such as:
“SATA Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 Failure - Strike F1 to continue F2 to run the setup utility”
In certain scenarios, the nature of problem can be logical too. In such cases, system does not recognize the hard drive and hence we need to use Recovery Console or other similar solutions. If problem persists, backup all the data, format the drive and reinstall Windows. However if backup fails, repair and recover it through Data Recovery utilities.
If BIOS doesn’t recognize the hard drive, we need to check for the connecting cables, BIOS settings and Motherboard integrity first, before looking for any Hard Drive Recovery help. Physical hard drive failure results when the hard drive is made to operate under conditions like environmental heat (viz. direct sunlight), humidity, high pressure , condensation, fluctuating weather conditions etc.for prolonged duration. Such factors introduce defects in hard drives. More reasons include:
- Read/write head crash
- Electronic failure
- Actuator arm damaged
- Spindle motor crash
- Platter misalignment
In typical physical hard drive failure, disk recoveryservice is the solution that can help extracting lost data. It includes experts’ supervision, repairing hard drives as an intermediate step and Clean Room environment. The failed hard drive is operated on component level, with the original data on disk platters remains intact. After knowing the cause, the appropriate procedure is applied to extract lost data.
Stellar Information Systems Limited offers the finest Hard Drive Recovery service through Class-100 Clean Rooms. Stellar’s experts carefully analyze the media for reason of failure and deploy suitable tools and techniques. Stellar has a wide range of solutions to retrieve lost data. It also offers logical Data Recovery software for Windows, Mac OS, Linux , UNIX and Novell Netware.
Easy Methods To Defragment The Harddrive
Some style to keep your computer system healthy is to de-fragment its disc drive. It helps increase the efficiency of the pc. De-fragmenting is just a trouble-free factor to carry out.
Before discussing the method of de-fragmentation, permit us figure out firstly concerning fragmentation. It's the condition which transpires as soon as the operating windows system breaks a software program into parts. This might be as a effect of not sufficient amount within your storage mechanism the place the software program was kept originally. For instance, you changed a pc software that was kept and it grew to be higher than its unique amount. Therefore, it cannot be restricted in its unique physical volume. The working windows system then breaks the pc program into two or essentially the most parts however shops these into different storage regions. Automatically, the windows system saves a record of the places where the software fragments are kept. The program system it employs is either NTFS or FAT (Computer program Allocation Table). These pc software procedures are like libraries that keep a lot of various information in addition to documents. But if the kept pc software is desired, the operating windows system will ask the software program windows system in regards to the position of the fragmented program. The scanning process within your file system plus the reuniting of the fragmented pc software components into its a few original file is called defragmentation.
The process of defragmentation is from time to time time consuming. But, it is commonly used since it is an trouble-free step to supercharge the procedure of the computer system. Hence, you need to have sufficient time ahead of starting the process. It could very last half-hour or even specific hours depending on the frequency of utilization of the pc from the final done defrag.
Here are the steps in defragmentation:
1. Primarily, close all working applications, even always functioning computer programs such as anti-virus utilities as well as screen savers. You may also use the command Ctrl+Alt+Delete to check on some functioning application. Click on the functioning pc software and click on "End Task" at the bottom to close it.
2. Click and open the "Start" menu.
3. Browse through "Programs," then through "Accessories," to "System Tools," and last of all, "Disk Defragmenter."
4. The Select Drive will appear. Click on "Settings."
5. Select both "Check the drive for errors" and "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster."
6. Choose that drive to defrag from the pull down menu and press "OK."
7. Highlight that drive you need to defrag by doing a left click on the disk. Press "Analyze" to figure out if the hard drive needs defrag or not.
8. If it indicates that the hard drive requires defragging, click "Defragment." Once pressed, the defrag process starts and it is also able to take 30 minutes or more to do the procedure. It depends on the drive size.
9. If the defrag utility can't defrag your selected hard drive and says there is an error, run the Scandisk utility. You may execute this by clicking on the "Start" button, hovering over "Programs," then "Accessories," then "System Tools," and "Scandisk."
10. Close the utility once the defrag operation is completed.
11. It is advisable that you activate the defrag code at least once a month.
12. Additionally, it is advised that the you run it after downloading or adding new file.
At all times learn instructions before starting to be safe.
Before discussing the method of de-fragmentation, permit us figure out firstly concerning fragmentation. It's the condition which transpires as soon as the operating windows system breaks a software program into parts. This might be as a effect of not sufficient amount within your storage mechanism the place the software program was kept originally. For instance, you changed a pc software that was kept and it grew to be higher than its unique amount. Therefore, it cannot be restricted in its unique physical volume. The working windows system then breaks the pc program into two or essentially the most parts however shops these into different storage regions. Automatically, the windows system saves a record of the places where the software fragments are kept. The program system it employs is either NTFS or FAT (Computer program Allocation Table). These pc software procedures are like libraries that keep a lot of various information in addition to documents. But if the kept pc software is desired, the operating windows system will ask the software program windows system in regards to the position of the fragmented program. The scanning process within your file system plus the reuniting of the fragmented pc software components into its a few original file is called defragmentation.
The process of defragmentation is from time to time time consuming. But, it is commonly used since it is an trouble-free step to supercharge the procedure of the computer system. Hence, you need to have sufficient time ahead of starting the process. It could very last half-hour or even specific hours depending on the frequency of utilization of the pc from the final done defrag.
Here are the steps in defragmentation:
1. Primarily, close all working applications, even always functioning computer programs such as anti-virus utilities as well as screen savers. You may also use the command Ctrl+Alt+Delete to check on some functioning application. Click on the functioning pc software and click on "End Task" at the bottom to close it.
2. Click and open the "Start" menu.
3. Browse through "Programs," then through "Accessories," to "System Tools," and last of all, "Disk Defragmenter."
4. The Select Drive will appear. Click on "Settings."
5. Select both "Check the drive for errors" and "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster."
6. Choose that drive to defrag from the pull down menu and press "OK."
7. Highlight that drive you need to defrag by doing a left click on the disk. Press "Analyze" to figure out if the hard drive needs defrag or not.
8. If it indicates that the hard drive requires defragging, click "Defragment." Once pressed, the defrag process starts and it is also able to take 30 minutes or more to do the procedure. It depends on the drive size.
9. If the defrag utility can't defrag your selected hard drive and says there is an error, run the Scandisk utility. You may execute this by clicking on the "Start" button, hovering over "Programs," then "Accessories," then "System Tools," and "Scandisk."
10. Close the utility once the defrag operation is completed.
11. It is advisable that you activate the defrag code at least once a month.
12. Additionally, it is advised that the you run it after downloading or adding new file.
At all times learn instructions before starting to be safe.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Choosing The Right Harddrive Size and RPM
There are two important considerations when looking at hard drive specifications for your computer and notebook,hard drive size and hard drive RPM.
Hard Drive Size
Hard drive size simply refers to the data storage capacity of a hard disk drive. Desktop computer hard drives offer sizes of up to 500 gigabytes (GB), while notebook computer hard dives offer sizes of up to 160 GB. Notebook computer hard drives are more expensive than desktop computer hard drives with more than twice the capacity of the notebook hard drive. This is due to the engineering difficulties inherent in making high-capacity hard drives for the smaller notebook computers form-factor.
A notebook computer's hard drive size indicates how much data a notebook computer can store. If you are interested in storing large amounts of movies, pictures, or music, you want to go with a larger hard drive to avoid running out of space.
A hard drive's size has very little to do with its performance, unless the drive is almost full. The Windows NTFS File System requires a minimum of 10% of the hard drive to be free space for optimum performance, and it frequently requests as much as 15%. This means that, on a 40 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 34-36 GB, leaving 4-6 GB of space unused. On a 160 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 136-144 GB, leaving a massive 16-24 GB unused. If you start to go over these Windows storage limits, you may notice your computer's performance taking drastic hits.
Hard Drive RPM
Hard drive RPM is a hard drive's rotational speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). Desktop hard drives now have speeds as high as 15,000 RPM. Notebook hard drives, on the other hand, currently have an RPM ceiling of 7200 RPM.
A hard drive's RPM indicates how fast the drive's spindle will move or how fast the hard drive platters will spin. The higher the spin rate is, the shorter the seek time and latency will be. This translates to quicker data access and transfer.
How Large and How Fast
The greater the free space and the higher the RPM, the better your notebook computer's performance will be, so go for a slightly-more-than-comfortable size and the highest RPM for your notebook computer's hard drive. A large hard drive gives you the option to expand in the future, and you can never go wrong with a notebook computer that can give you fast access to your stored data.
It is even more crucial that you go with the top-of-the-line hard drive size and RPM for your notebook computer if you are fond of computer games, you have a lot of multimedia files, or you want to be able to easily upgrade your programs. These games, content and programs take up a lot of space. A high RPM hard drive can also cut down on game load times, giving you more time enjoying your games and less time staring at loading screens.
This article may be republished freely as long as this copyright notice and box of resource links are included at the bottom.
Hard Drive Size
Hard drive size simply refers to the data storage capacity of a hard disk drive. Desktop computer hard drives offer sizes of up to 500 gigabytes (GB), while notebook computer hard dives offer sizes of up to 160 GB. Notebook computer hard drives are more expensive than desktop computer hard drives with more than twice the capacity of the notebook hard drive. This is due to the engineering difficulties inherent in making high-capacity hard drives for the smaller notebook computers form-factor.
A notebook computer's hard drive size indicates how much data a notebook computer can store. If you are interested in storing large amounts of movies, pictures, or music, you want to go with a larger hard drive to avoid running out of space.
A hard drive's size has very little to do with its performance, unless the drive is almost full. The Windows NTFS File System requires a minimum of 10% of the hard drive to be free space for optimum performance, and it frequently requests as much as 15%. This means that, on a 40 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 34-36 GB, leaving 4-6 GB of space unused. On a 160 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 136-144 GB, leaving a massive 16-24 GB unused. If you start to go over these Windows storage limits, you may notice your computer's performance taking drastic hits.
Hard Drive RPM
Hard drive RPM is a hard drive's rotational speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). Desktop hard drives now have speeds as high as 15,000 RPM. Notebook hard drives, on the other hand, currently have an RPM ceiling of 7200 RPM.
A hard drive's RPM indicates how fast the drive's spindle will move or how fast the hard drive platters will spin. The higher the spin rate is, the shorter the seek time and latency will be. This translates to quicker data access and transfer.
How Large and How Fast
The greater the free space and the higher the RPM, the better your notebook computer's performance will be, so go for a slightly-more-than-comfortable size and the highest RPM for your notebook computer's hard drive. A large hard drive gives you the option to expand in the future, and you can never go wrong with a notebook computer that can give you fast access to your stored data.
It is even more crucial that you go with the top-of-the-line hard drive size and RPM for your notebook computer if you are fond of computer games, you have a lot of multimedia files, or you want to be able to easily upgrade your programs. These games, content and programs take up a lot of space. A high RPM hard drive can also cut down on game load times, giving you more time enjoying your games and less time staring at loading screens.
This article may be republished freely as long as this copyright notice and box of resource links are included at the bottom.
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