Data Recovery For Laptop Hard Drives

May 23rd, 2010 by admin


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If you compare the hard drive of a desktop with the hard drive of a laptop, the only difference you will notice is the size. Their technologies are the same, but this size variation makes the laptop hard drive more difficult. Still, there are companies that have the required equipment for such fine data recovery procedures.

Because laptops provide the ability to work anywhere they are now preferred over the usual desktop work stations. This leads to a lot of important data being stored on their hard drives. While their hard drives are no weaker than the drives the old work stations had, they are however highly susceptible to damage. That’s when you will need to call in a laptop data recovery specialist.

The best way to choose a data recovery specialist is to allow the required time frame to make the research and correct choice. To do this, you will need to recognize the symptoms of probable hard drive problems. When choosing a recovery specialist, by checking multiple companies and comparing their price statements you can avoid those that will try to use your need for help right away. The data recovery company should have sterilized facilities for full recovery procedures.

The most common signs that a damaged hard drive provides are ticking and clicking noises when access is required to stored data. These are mechanical damage symptoms. There are also logical errors that can cripple the booting process of the computer or that will disable the reading of certain files that are stored in damaged sectors

If the problem of the drive shows signs that the issue might be of mechanical nature, drive not spinning or you can hear noises when reading, the help of a data recovery specialist in imperative. The drive might have a critical failure and attempting to recover the drive yourself will probably make it worse.

If the drive has logical errors or you deleted a file by mistake, there is enough software on the market to help you but there is the possibility that you misuse it so the help of a data recovery specialist is still recommended.

All in all, if you have problems with your laptop hard drive you can attempt to fix the problem yourself, as long as it is not a mechanical one. If you need a data recovery specialist, make sure the research is done prior to sending the media.

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Be Mobile With a Portable External Hard Drive

May 22nd, 2010 by admin


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A portable external hard drive facilitates one to be mobile with important data to access it wherever or whenever one gets a computer to work on. Portable external hard drives have become a part of the routine day-to-day activities of individuals these days by adding to their mobility. This tiny storage device is very helpful for transporting and sharing a large quantity of data that cannot be sent by mail or uploaded on a CD. Just as Compact Disks replaced floppy diskettes and drives, these devices are a perfect substitute for numerous CDs.

An External drive is no different from an inbuilt hard drive, except for its portability. With bulky computer data becoming seemingly important to be stored safely, these portable devices have become a reasonably good solution for storage and transfer of data. Professionals like web designers, audio and video editors, teachers, accountants etc. are just the right target audience for these devices. External hard drives have come handy for them, since they are now freely mobile and can now access the required data from any modern-day computer.

Now that office documents are digital files rather than record books and paper, the storage and security of such data is as significant as keeping legal or financial papers in the treasury. These devices, especially of high storage space can store and save the entire day’s work easily. Thus, such a portable drive has added a lot of convenience to the busy office worker as well. They have become just the right storage medium for videos, photos, images, as well as documents for the media confident individuals of today.

A variety of cheap external hard drives are now available. One can now virtually keep the entire data contained in a regular PC or laptop in one’s pocket with these storage devices. The data storage capacity of the portable external drives is now up to hundreds of gigabytes. Thus, while on one hand the prime use of this device is for its portability, on the other, they are now cheap and easily available. Portable and cheap external hard drives are now slightly bigger than one’s palm and have easily become the requirement of the modern computer savvy generation.

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Tips For Buying an External Hard Drive

May 20th, 2010 by admin


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External hard drives are a great tool for anyone who owns a computer. They can do multiple things for anyone who not only uses their computer for work related tasks, but also personal things as well. For example, if you have files you do not want to lose, you can create copies of them and put them on an external hard drive, allowing you to keep all of your files safe from a computer crash. If you need extra space, you can use a drive as an effective second hard drive. There are a few tips to buying a drive, that can help you to make sure you get the best product to suit your needs.

Choosing Between New or Refurbished Hard Drives

The first thing that should be considered when buying a hard drive is whether or not to buy a new or refurbished one. Refurbished hard drives are often as good as new ones, as long as you take the time to understand what you are buying. Once you have made the decision between new or refurbished, you can go on with your search in a more specialized way.

Choose Your Size

Storage capacity is quite possibly the biggest decision to make when you are looking at buying an external hard drive. They come in a wide variety of sizes, anywhere from as small as 4GB to as large as 1TB. This wide range of storage sizes allows for a multitude of different storage options that you can choose from to meet your needs. Along with the storage capacity, come different prices. Prices are generally in direct proportion to the capacity of the drive, therefore, more storage equals a higher price. By knowing the size drive you need, you can make sure that you are not paying more than you have to. By not buying more storage than you need, you are essentially saving money you could allocate to other computing needs such as a web cam or a new wireless mouse.

Use the Internet to Your Advantage to Find You External Hard Drive

The Internet is an amazing tool you can use to find thousands of quality products to purchase, including your new external hard drive. There are hundreds of websites that offer quality hard drives that will meet your needs. If you do not mind paying full price, you can purchase directly from the company that makes them. If you don’t want to purchase from a company, you can buy it from a computer “store” online that may offer sales and discounts. If you are looking at new hard drives or refurbished hard drives, you can purchase from online auction sites that allow users to bid for products.

Making sure you make the right purchase can mean all the difference in terms of how well your external hard drive performs. Make sure to compare prices once you have found the one you like, so you do not pay more than you have to. Purchasing one is easy, but by taking a few extra careful steps can help make sure you are getting exactly what you need.

Jim Hedgecoth is a professional writer for I/O Magic Corporation. I/O Magic is an excellent online resource offering computer storage devices such as Blu-Ray Drives, External DVD-RW Drives, and USB Harddrives.

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Replacing Computer Hard Drives

May 17th, 2010 by admin


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Have you run out of storage space in your computer?

Perhaps it’s time for a bigger hard drive!

In this article you’ll find out how to replace your current hard drive.

In actuality the computer wouldn’t even run without a hard disk drive, its BIOS or basic operating system would be looking for it the minute you turned it on.

The hard disk drive is a sealed unit with multiple rigid magnetic disks inside.

It is sealed to prevent any foreign particles from entering inside it, which would render the drive useless.

Hard disk drives come in many sizes, anywhere from a few hundred megabytes to several gigabytes.

Now that’s what I call a memory bank!

I wish I had one of these babies in my head, then I’d never forget anything again.

Obviously you’d want to get a large enough hard drive for your needs.

Like memory modules, the bigger the better.

But remember, the larger the hard drive the more it will cost you.

There are currently 3 types of HARD DRIVES:

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics).

EIDE (Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics) and,

SCSI (Small Computer Serial Interface) – A SCSI expansion card is needed.

The most popular being the EIDE drive.

Most current motherboards support EIDE drives, but check your motherboard owner’s manual to be sure.

On the back of the hard drive you’ll notice 2 connectors.

The smaller one is to supply DC power to the drive.

The larger one is used for data communications to and from the computer.

You’ll also notice there are jumpers, much like your motherboard and expansion boards.

If this is the only hard drive in your system you’ll want to set it as your master drive.

Most of the time the drive will be already configured at the factory for master drive # 1.

Connect one of the remaining power leads from the power supply to the DC power connector on the drive.

The power connector is keyed so it will only fit one way.

Connect the larger flat ribbon cable to the motherboard and to the data connector on the drive, making sure the dotted colored edge goes to pin # 1 (usually near the power connector).

Slide the drive into one of the bays and secure it with 4 Phillips screws using a non-magnetic screwdriver only!

To remove or replace the drive, simply reverse the procedure.

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Differences Between a Desktop and a Laptop Hard Drive

May 15th, 2010 by admin


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The HDD in any home computer is the most important storage device. It works on the principles of magnetic polarization. A metallic disk is spun by a motor and this makes sectors or parts of the disk pass under the head that reads and writes them as they move. Laptop HDDs are not any different in this sense, the only difference somebody can find is that they use less electricity and have a smaller general outer shell. These attributes contribute to their lower write and read speeds too. Notebook hard drives often use advanced power schemes to cut down on consumption and they are protected against shocks and falls. IBM notebook hard disk drives for instance recognize that the notebook is falling and put the head at a safe position before impact.

Most laptop hard drives operate at 5400 rounds per minute opposed to 7200 used by most of their desktop relatives, older models still work at 4200 rounds per minute. Regular size for a laptop HDD is 2.5″ disk diameter while desktop manufacturers tend to use 3.5″ disks. The smaller disks result in a more dense arrangement and that gives the head some extra work. For example slower rotation speeds had to be introduced so that the head can still pick up information from the disk with the tighter packed blocks. Most often used connector type for recent hard disks is SATA, which is a serial way of transferring data. As a consequence the controller chips became faster and less complicated and the old 80 wire ribbon cables could be swapped with the new thin 7 wire solution.

These portable hard drives usually have a smaller capacity, 160GB to 320GB is common, but more expensive models already have 500GB and bigger drives. Memory chip based drives called SSD are also available both for notebooks and desktop computers. These drives are way more expensive than a normal mechanical unit, but there are pros to them as well. They have no moving parts, for one, and that can significantly lowers power consumption. The technology used allows faster data access that makes reading of small scattered files faster by the magnitude. Read and write speeds on the long run also rival normal hard drives so they’re expected to take their place as soon as the price drops to an acceptable level.

A regular hard disk drive costs about $60 to $80 and as expected an SSD with 250GB capacity is about ten times as expensive as the normal version, at $698 they are still a bit steep.

If you like this article, you may find my site Everything about computers a good read. I write about laptop hard disk drives and other computer related topics there.

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What to Do When Your Computer Or Hard Drive Begins Making Noise

May 14th, 2010 by admin


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Inside your desktop, laptop is a device called a ‘hard drive‘. This storage device is what holds all of your documents, music, movies, software and more. Hard drives today are very advanced compared to the ones years ago. Drives today are smaller and have a much higher capacity. They also spin extremely fast inside. All this advancement also introduces additional possibility of failure. Drives generally do not last as long as they did years ago – the often last only 3 to 5 years.

Good backup habits are very important. There are many options for backing up your data, which will be covered in a separate article.

It is important to be aware and not ignore the signs of hard drive failure when it starts. There are some warnings that the computer itself will give you. For example, when you start the computer you may see a message related to “SMART” – this is a special technology that the hard drive has and tells the computer that there is a problem with the drive – in turn the computer will notify you on-screen.

If you see a message other than “SMART STATUS OK”, for example, containing the word failure, or problem, it is time to make sure you get your data backed up somewhere else and replace the drive as soon as possible. You may also receive warnings related to this when the computer is up in Windows. Be sure you do not ignore these messages.

Another key sign of a problem to be aware of is noise – sometimes a drive will make clicking sounds, or squeaking / squealing sounds. Inside the hard drive it is mostly metal, so if the drive is beginning to fail, it can potentially make very loud screeching type noises – metal against metal. Hard drives can make clicking noises that are normal, but if you begin hearing abnormal / odd-timed clicking and humming and other combined noises, especially the squealing type, get your data backed up immediately and replace the drive.

If you are not sure about the noise – for example if it is quiet, or only simple clicking type noises, you may want to consider recording the noise and posting it to a media/video site and ask people what it is, or contact your local technician. In any event, be sure to back up your data.

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What Happens During a Hard Drive Wipe?

May 12th, 2010 by admin


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A hard drive wipe refers to a secure deletion procedure that leaves no traces of the data that used to be stored on the wiped hard disk drive. This is usually performed using specialized software programs designed for this purpose. It should be noted that a hard drive wipe is different from and much more secure than simply deleting all the files that are on a hard drive.

This is because when a file is deleted, it is not really entirely removed from the hdd. What actually happens is that the file is simply marked as having been deleted, and the hard disk space that it occupies is marked as being ready for use. So the file is no longer listed in its directories. Also, the space in which a deleted file is contained may in fact be overwritten by new data being put into the hard disk.

For many applications and users, this file deletion may be sufficient. A more thorough deletion would just be a waste of system resources, and thus is usually not implemented. However, there are certain cases in which the more secure deletion that a hard drive wipe affords becomes desirable.

For instance, computers that handle critical information might eventually be reassigned, or replaced. In this case, it might be desirable to ensure that the important information could not be recovered afterward, in case malicious acts may be done with this data in hand. For instance, financial information such as credit card numbers, account numbers, and balances may be recovered from hard disk drives that are recycled but not wiped clean.

Similarly, even personal computers might benefit from a hdd wipe, for instance when they are being resold or given away. The simple precaution of doing a hard disk drive wipe may prevent or at least lessen the risk of identity theft and the acquisition of any other critical personal information.

One of the easiest ways to perform a hdd wipe is to acquire a copy of a hard drive wipe program which can automatically run from a CD or other removable storage device. In most cases, the hard drive wipe process then just consists of plugging the storage device containing the appropriate program into the computer to be wiped clean.

A hard drive wipe works by overwriting the existing data with random data, often multiple times. This has the effect of covering the previously existing data and making it almost impossible to recover. The standard number of overwrites ranges from seven all the way up to thirty five layers of overwriting data.

Hard disk drive wiping also helps by being a more environmentally-friendly alternative to physical destruction of the hard drive. When disposing of a hard drive containing confidential information, the user might want to opt to have the drive physically rendered unusable. However, recycling facilities exist that would re-purpose the hard drive. To do this, they are required by law to wipe the hard drives so as to make any previous data unrecoverable.

The hard disk drive wipe is a useful procedure that is becoming more and more necessary in this information age.

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Add an Extra Hard Drive to Your PC – Internal or External?

May 11th, 2010 by admin


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If the decision is to be an internal hard drive, then a little research is required. The first thing you will need to do is to find out what kind of extra hard drive is required.

To find this out you will have to either check out the specifications in your computers manual. Or you can open up the case and take a look inside.

Before you enter into the workings of the computer, you must be aware of the dangers of static. One of the ways to reduce the risk would be to wear an anti static wristband.

Most machines only have one hard drive, therefore it should be fairly easy to add another.

The cable system is very important when adding an extra hard drive to the computer. There are two common cable systems used to connect drives to the motherboard. One system includes the IDE drives, which are also known as PATA or Parallel ATA. These cables are flat or thick and are as wide as your finger.

The other system has the SATA drives or the Serial ATA drives. For these drives the cables are thin and are about the diameter of a pencil.

The common and mass-market computers will generally have the PATA or the SATA drives. Although is also possible that your computer has SCSI hard drives, in which case you will need SCSI cables.

If your machine already has two drives, then it becomes a little difficult to install a third one. it is much simpler to add an external drive.

An external enclosure system is probably the easiest way to add an extra hard drive to your computer. The system is fairly simple here a standard hard drive is enclosed within a desk-friendly case and then plugged into your computer usually via USB. You only have to format your new hard drive and it immediately registers as an extra hard drive on your computer. Now you can perform normal actions like adding, changing, creating and deleting files.

The biggest advantage of an external enclosure system is that it is possible to change the extra hard drive without any trouble if you need even more space. You can also transfer the hard drive to another computer. The biggest advantage is that you don’t even need to open up the old machine and it also removes the risk of static.

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How a Computer Hard Drive Works

May 10th, 2010 by admin


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A computer Hard Drive, or Fixed Disk, is where all your data is stored when a computer is off. Because the data is stored magnetically, it doesn’t need any electrical power to retain or remember all this data.

PHYSICAL CONSTRUCTION.

The Hard Drive consists of usually one metal disk coated on both sides with a special magnetic material, usually an iron oxide compound, that has tiny particles that can be magnetically orientated to represent bits – which are the basic unit of computer memory, and are equivalent to a switch, being either on or off.

This disk then spins at a very high rate of 8000 revolutions per minute or more, and then the two read/write heads that are used to actually retrieve the data from this disk, skim just a few hundredths of a millimetre from the surface of this spinning disk. The read/write heads are suspended on the end of metal arms that are able to move from the outer edge to the inner edge of this disk, so that they can seek out the data that is required. Very powerful rare earth magnets help control the rapid movement of these heads.

HOW DATA IS STORED ON THE HARD DRIVE.

The data on a HDD is arranged in concentric tracks, almost microscopic in width, and the disk is further divided into sectors, like slices of a pizza, and on hard drives that have more than one disk, or platter, cylinders are also defined. A cylinder is all the tracks, on multiple platters, that are the same circumference.

When a disk is still raw, it needs to be formatted, which is the process whereby the disk is divided magnetically into these tracks, sectors and cylinders so that the data can be written to the right places. A boot record is also written onto the disk during formatting, which is a track containing information about how the disk is formatted and constructed.

At a spin rate of 8000 RPM, the outer edge of the disk is moving under the heads at a speed of over 100km/h, or over 60 mph. If the heads were to touch the surface at this speed, some serious damage would occur. This sometimes happens when a hard drive gets a hard jolt, and this is known as a head crash. Data is transferred by means of the heads being given an instruction to read or write to the magnetic disk surface at the precise moment the head flies over that part of the disk. Thus the head has about one 2,000th of a second to do it’s job of writing a block or segment of data.

In the old days of computers, the computer itself had to control where the data was put on a HDD. In modern computers, hard drives come with built in IDE, or Integrated Drive Electronics, which takes care of all the nitty gritty of random data storage, leaving the computer CPU to get on with other important work. This system speeds up the computer operation overall, by sharing the workload.

Hard drives can store large amounts of data. The most common drive size in computers at the moment is in the region of 120 Gigabytes, which is enough space to store the text of about 150,000 best seller novels. Laptops are now coming out with 1 terabyte hard drives, which is 1,000 Gigabytes of storage. Most desktop computers can easily accommodate 4 hard drives, so loading the text of all the books in your local city library onto your personal computer hard drives is quite possible.

Although a Hard drive doesn’t look like much, it is a remarkable piece of precision engineering married to lightning fast electronics which has been constantly improved since the first hard drives of 5 megabytes came out in the 1980’s

Hard drives have certainly come a long way.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope it was helpful.

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Erase Computer Hard Drive – Why Is This Important

May 8th, 2010 by admin


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The most common reason for erasing you computers hard drive is if you are going to move the computer on maybe to a charity or friends because you have invested in a new model.

If you simply delete all the files on your computer you will still not be entirely free from the possibility that some one can retrieve any of you deleted files. This can be accomplished quite easily with a computer program that is readily available. Simply by using this software any body would be able to restore your most personnel information that you had had on your computer. Any thing that you had used your computer for such as banking, taxes, adress, pictures could be retrieved quite easily.

Why is this possible?

Well when you delete a file on your computer all you are actually doing is creating a space on your hard drive. The files themselves are not physically deleted even when you use your recycle bin. That original file will have left a trace on the computers hard drive and as discussed earlier they can be retrieved quite easily.

The only sure way to clear the file would be to overwrite it with another file. Now you cannot do this your self as the computer decides here the files are stored on you hard drive. There are software programs that can do this for you. They can be easily installed and operated. A few clicks of the mouse will have your hard drive cleaned up and secure. You will be safe in the knowledge that no body will be able to restore any of you computers files and any of the sensitive nature of the contents.

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