You have a disk that you want to use with Windows. You need to format it: What file-system do you use? A file-system specifies exactly how files are laid out on a hard disk. In other words it defines, in conjunction with the registry, where the computer would go to find files and folders stored on the disk and how the computer locates the data on the hard disk...

Hard drives can die at any time, but typically you get some kind of warning from sounds they make. Usually any sound that a hard drive makes, other than a spinning noise of course, is bad. Here is an interesting page from a data recovery company which gives various sounds from different brands of hard drives which are dying. Some (obvious) advice from their web...

I am always looking for ways to make my computer quieter, cooler and consume less energy (usually they are all one in the same). On that note, here is an interesting walkthrough on how to build your own hard drive silencing enclosure. The idea is quite simple: sandwich a hard drive between two layers of gel packs which will absorb the sound and vibrations. One...

There are numerous utilities out there for Windows users to check the health of their hard drives (just do a Google search or look through some of the older tips I have written), but for Linux users a tool for you is GSmartControl. The description of the product is what you would expect: GSmartControl is a graphical user interface for smartctl (from...

I am about to have to completely wipe and rebuild all of our training machines (15 right now), so the easy way of going about it is to get one machine exactly how I want it and then clone that machine to the other machines. I have used commercial options in the past, but quite frankly I have found them to be so ‘featureful’ that they are overly...

When your Windows operating system reads a file off a hard-disk, it’s reading a file stored in lots of little bits -usually 512-bit chunks in NTFS. Your operating system doesn’t always, in fact rarely does it, write to the disk putting all of the separate 512-bit chunks next to each other. Sometimes different chunks get put far away from one another,...

Following on from my article about backing up your data, I’ve learned some important new lessons: Hard-drives can fail in many ways and each failure has varying symptoms. Sometimes the thing just fails to work at all. This can be accompanied, perhaps, by some noise from the drive itself. These symptoms are commonly caused by mechanical failure such as a...

If you knew me personally, you’d be fed up with hearing me say this like a broken record: “Backup, backup, backup. If your system crashes and is unrecoverable then if you have no backup you’re screwed.”And people still don’t bother. When their system does crash, perhaps due to a hard-disk failure, I see them running to me whining,...

Solid State Drives (SSD) are inevitably what are going to replace our existing hard disk drives. For those not aware of what the difference is between the two, traditional hard drives have moving parts on the inside while SSDs so not. You can consider them "big flash drives". SSD is above and beyond superior to HDD in every way except space for the...

Situation: You’re going to upgrade your primary hard drive to something bigger, better and faster – however the primary hard drive is obviously what holds your operating system. So now you’re faced with a choice.Reinstall the operating system on the new drive and reinstall all your apps. Use drive imaging software to copy everything from the...

As with all technology, it gets cheaper over time. Now you get the (currently) monster-sized 1TB hard drive you wanted for a price that’s right. Up until very recently 1TB drives had a stubborn price point but 3 have managed to bust the $200 mark. All 3 drives listed here are SATA 3.0Gb/s. Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340ASPrice: $199.99 Western...

As you probably know, your hard drive is the most important and fragile component of your computer. Since it houses all your data, your system basically “lives and dies” by the health of your hard drive. Perhaps the most important indicator in a hard drive is the S.M.A.R.T. check which is built in to virtually all models. This check is a way for your...

All of us have been through this at some point. We have a new, virgin hard drive and we need to move all of our programs and files over to it. You may have bought a new computer. You may just be installing a new, faster hard drive. Either way, you need to move everything over. You want your new setup to work just like the old one. You want all your files there...

Sooner or later, all hard drives crash. It is only a matter of when. When it happens, the degree of sweat and tears you experience is directly related to how prepared you were for it to begin with. Backing up your data is important. I even have two computers which are set up almost identically so that if the drive on one of my machines dies, I don’t lose...

Introduction Welcome to PCMech! If you run into any trouble following this guide or installing your hard drive, feel free to join our forums at http://forum.pcmech.com and ask for help, someone will be glad to help. For continued tips, tricks, and updates on our content, you might also consider signing up for our newsletter by entering your email address into...

A visual look at what’s involved in installing a standard hard...

If you have looked at computer store shelves lately, you have probably noticed that SATA drives are becoming more prevalent.  Most motherboards now come standard with at least two SATA connectors, most power supplies have SATA power connectors built in, and SATA hard drives are becoming cheaper and more available.  SATA I (SATA 150) has been around for...

As fate has it, you wake up one morning to discover your machine will not boot. “Of course this can’t happen to me, it only happens to ‘other people’.” No matter what you think, hard drive failures can happen to anyone. You. Me. The neighbor down the street. The business owner downtown. It doesn’t matter. It happens eventually. Whether your system...

Two things blend together to make RAID more powerful than ever: An increasing number of die-hard, PC-loving speed- freaks and an ever-decreasing price of the hard drive. We\’re (for most of us) beyond the stage of thinking our hard drives are too small. We\’re beyond the stages of making due because a hard drive costs so much. But, for the PC...