Hard Drives

When purchasing a new hard drive for your computer, there are multiple factors to consider including both the capacity of the hard drive and the cache size. Knowing what the cache size is and how it…

Pre-built computers frequently contain hard drives with hidden volumes storing recovery information such as the operating system, device drivers and bundled applications. The hidden volume consumes a…

Your iPhone's contact list is an essential feature -- information such as phone numbers, addresses and birth dates is all stored in a contact's profile. If you no longer need a particular contact,…

When you click on your main hard drive folder, you should see a list of basic folders including "Program Files," "Documents and Settings" and "Windows." You may wonder…

While most any computer hardware, including a bad hard drive, can cause a parity error, it's not the only thing that causes this error and it’s not the most typical cause. A failing or faulty…

With the advent of Solid-State Drives (SSDs), computer storage evolved to facilitate smaller drive sizes and portable computing. As opposed to platter-based drives, which come with moving parts and…

If your MacBook's hard drive fails, you could lose all your pictures, documents and any other files you have stored on your laptop. If you hard drive is making knocking or clicking noises, it could be…

Every website you visit leaves footprints on your computer’s hard drive. These “footprints” can be in the form of files or entries in the system’s registry. If you want to…

Oracle VM VirtualBox does not have an option that allows you to increase the size of a virtual machine's hard drive through the graphical interface, which may cause a challenge for you if you have no…

The Seagate GoFlex Desk is a universal serial bus, high-capacity external hard drive designed for use with desktop computers. The GoFlex Desk comes in 1 terabyte, 2TB and 3TB sizes and works with…

Apple offers a solid-state drive option for some of its computers, notably the MacBook Air and Mac Pro. Unlike traditional hard drives, which store data on spinning metal disks, an SSD has no moving…

The Acer Aspire One netbook is a small, ultraportable laptop that uses a SSD or hard drive. You can open up the Acer Aspire One to access this drive for troubleshooting purposes or an upgrade. The…

Owners of a Nintendo Wii video gaming console can unlock many features in the device by performing a software modification. After "softmodding" the Nintendo Wii, many different user-created…

When your computer's hard disk drive breaks down it's a nerve wracking experience. All the files you've been collecting are suddenly inaccessible. If you don't have a backup, you may have lost the…

Solid state drives (SSD) and standard mechanical hard drives operate on very different technology. As with any internal computing device, hard drives require electrical power to operate correctly.…

Computers require a permanent storage area to hold application and user data. This requirement is most commonly met with an internal hard drive. Mechanical hard drives currently enjoy an industry…

MacBooks have the distinct advantage of being able to work with a large variety of hard drives. While MacBooks are specific about what type of internal drives can work, the same isn't true when it…

The Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 laptop was released in 2008 and is no longer in production. The laptop shipped with the Windows Vista operating system and a 250 gigabyte (GB) hard drive. As the drive ages,…

You can enable offline mode for your Gmail account, which links it to your hard drive where it stores messages. Not all browsers and operating systems are supported, including Safari 4 on a Mac…

Netbooks are smaller than ordinary laptops, which is why many netbook users feel the need to use an extra hard drive. This is done to accommodate all files, because placing them in the internal hard…

Computer towers are cases that sit upright on the floor or next to the monitor, differing from older cases that rested horizontally, with the monitor situated on top. Not all hard drives will work in…

Solid-state drives have become the latest fad in computer hardware. Unlike normal hard drives, SSDs are virtually impervious to shock damage and offer much faster data access rates. This makes them an…

Paint.NET is a graphics creation and editing program that is available as freeware for download from the Internet. It has a small file size yet retains some of the more advanced capabilities of larger…

The MacBook Pro 5400 and the MacBook Pro 7200 are references to the spindle speed of the hard disk drive installed on the top-level laptop from technology company Apple Inc. The spindle speed in…

If you have a number of video, music or other large files on your PC, you may find that the computer's hard drive rapidly fills up and you have little free space available. With prices on hard disk…

An essential part of every computer, a hard drive stores everything from your personal files to the computer's operating system. Known as a non-volatile form of data storage, this means that the hard…

Solid state drives consistently outperform hard disk drives in terms of speed. This is a direct result of their basic differences in their construction. Hard drives contain mechanical components that…

Computer hardware faces constant evolution and improvements to keep up with ever-growing user demands. Some components faced major modifications in terms of construction and technologies in use in…

To assist in the rapid retrieval of data, hard drive caches store data from the hard drive and transfer them to the program that requested the data. Caches are also known as "buffers," which are…

A computer's hard drive is one of the primary components of the machine. It gives the computer the ability to quickly and easily store information and data on a semi-permanent basis. The hard drive is…

The hard drive is a marvel of engineering. A 2-terabyte drive has a capacity of 2,000 billion bytes or the equivalent of 200,000 10-megabyte hard drives that were available with the first generation…

Hackers use a variety of methods to exploit the vulnerabilities of computers and use them for malicious purposes. Computer owners who do not use a firewall -- a system that monitors traffic to and…

To store data on your disk drive, you need to divide it into partitions, also called "volumes" in Microsoft utilities. However, part or all of the storage space available on the disk may be unassigned…

Modern computer operating systems have a program called CHKDSK, which is short for "Check Disk." This program not only scans hard drives for sector and file system errors such as missing sectors and…

Acer designed the TravelMate C110 as both a standard laptop computer and a tablet PC, which, when using the computer as a tablet, allows you to control the computer via the touch screen. The touch…

The hard drive is one of the most vital components of any computer. Without a hard drive, your computer would have no operating system, no way to install programs and no way of storing mass amounts of…

The technique of blurring part of a screencast recording is the same as that used to mask vehicle registration plates, people's faces or personal information contained on a printed page. Multi-track…

Combining two hard drives within a single computer is relatively common, but is not without its pitfalls. Difficulties can arise from combining different types of hardware and operating systems. These…

When you are designing a new system or upgrading an old one, you have a choice when it comes to storage. No computer is complete without a hard drive, and most systems pair that with an optical drive…

External hard drives, despite providing as much storage as any user might need, can be costly and can take up space on your desk. An Internet-based server, on the other hand, can be very convenient…

Hard drive backups are a necessary part of keeping any computer disaster-proof. So it is especially infuriating when it turns out that the backup itself is having problems. Being able to get lost data…

RAID, or redundant array of independent disks, is not a type of hard drive but rather a type of hard drive configuration in which data is copied between or spread out over several drives at once. RAID…

A local area network does a lot more than allow several computers to share an Internet connection. Users on a LAN can share printers and files or folders as well. While many Windows network users only…

If you have email addresses from people working at www.drugstore.com, and you want to remove those addresses from your mailing list, you can do so with a few quick steps. You may want to use a…

There are many times when you'll need to know the size of a hard drive: when you need to defragment the hard drive, when installing large programs, when upgrading the operating system or adding more…

An IDE hard drive has a 40-pin data slot and a 4-pin power slot. Signals are assigned to each pin in the data slot and power slot. The first pin on the IDE data slot corresponds to the reset function…

The jumpers on an IDE hard drive can be set to the "Master," "Slave," "Single" or "Cable Select" modes. "Single" is used when only one IDE drive is connected to the computer; "Master" designates the…

Your computer's basic input/output system, known as the BIOS, is the very first thing you see when you turn on your computer. The BIOS provides instructions to your computer on which device to use to…

External hard drives use different connections to interface with computers. The SATA (serial ATA) interface provides fast data transfer, but suffers from computers not having an external port that can…

Magnetic data storage was used in early mainframe computers, which used reel-to-reel tapes to store and retrieve data. Advancements in tape design eventually yielded both permanent and removable tape…

When connecting an external hard drive to a computer, Windows automatically allocates its next available drive letter. This can get confusing and inconvenient if certain processes regularly link to…

Operating systems assign a drive letter to each internal and external device connected to the computer. This makes it more convenient for you to identify and allocate the devices. The Disk Management…

As you download files and programs to your computer over time, you can easily end up reaching your hard drive storage capacity. Not only does this limit the amount of data the drive can hold, it also…

Computer hard drives are one of the miracles of modern technology. They handle the task of writing literally billions of bits of information every single day, usually without a mistake. And when they…

When you add a new internal or external hard drive to your computer, Windows assigns a letter to the drive. The available letters will vary depending on the devices on the number and types of drives…

Uninstall a program from your hard drive if it is causing instability in your operating system or to clear up space if you no longer use the software. Use the Windows uninstaller utility to completely…

Hibernation allows your computer to power down and store your information. The system restores your work when you start again. A hibernating computer takes up additional space from the hard drive, so…

In Windows Vista, the default system drive is labelled "C:." This is the hard drive that stores critical Windows and program files, as well as all other saved files unless you've added drives or…

An inverter, typically found inside a laptop computer, consists of a small board, which has impregnated electronic circuits stamped on it. Inverters look like thin boards about the size of two sticks…

A hard drive stores data on your hard drive using discs and read-write heads, along with a motor to spin the disc. First introduced to the public in 2008, a solid-state drive (SSD) is a newer form of…

Mechanical hard drives are found in devices such as MP3 players, video game consoles and desktop computers. The common hard drive contains many moving parts that move at high rates of speed, leading…

You may spend years adding just the right software, files, music and movies to your computer, but you risk losing it all in less than a day if you don't clone (copy) your hard drive and move it to…

Cloning hard dives is the process of copying all the data on one hard drive onto another. This is a time-consuming and potentially complex procedure. There are two types of hard drive formats, NTFS…

The Iomega Prestige is an external hard drive that comes in 0.5TB, 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB models. It offers a sleep mode, where the drive shuts itself down after not being in use for an extended period of…

Solid-state drives, more commonly known as SSDs, are the next generation storage medium for the computer market. They surpass the older hard disk drives (HDDs) in almost every category, with a few…

The American National Standards Institute offers standards for information technology. ANSI's Healthcare International Standards Panel covers health care-specific IT standards, while the International…

Desktop and laptop computers are normally enjoyable to use for music, movies and games. But if your computer is noisy, especially during high-performance sessions of HD video or gaming, it can take…

Catastrophic hard drive failure is aptly named. When a hard drive dies a sudden, premature death, you're faced with the loss of files, time, money and convenience. Most people don't plan ahead for the…

Disk partitioning is when a user divides the main hard drive into separate parts or partitions. This extends the functionality of your hard disk. For example, you can use the partition as another hard…

Integrated drive electronics (IDE) hard drives and optical drives connect to the motherboard through a 40-pin ribbon cable and a 4-pin power cable. The ribbon cable transmits data between the…

The process of combining multiple hard drives so they appear as a single drive is known as spanning. A spanned volume can take the empty space on two drives with separate volume designations -- such…

The hard drive is one of the most common computer storage devices. Inside a hard drive, spinning metal discs contain microscopic particles of metal oxides that react to magnets. A needle uses magnetic…

A problem facing corporate security staff in the beginning of the 21st century is data leakage. Employees intentionally or unintentionally storing data on external drives and removing them from the…

To resell or discard your HP 9000 server, you must remove the information stored on the hard drive. You can safely remove the information while leaving the hard drive intact using the "format"…

W2K8 is a Windows-based server that allows you to connect multiple computers to the same system and share data. Most servers have a connected hard drive, which is used as a system drive that all…

Mobility is the primary advantage of a laptop. There are two ways a laptop can be used for data logging -- as a wireless sniffer collecting data about wireless network traffic, or as an actual log…

The SIL3726 port multiplier is an external device that takes in several hardware device connections and plugs into a single port on your computer system. Although you do need an eSATA connection port…

As a Web administrator, you may often find the need to communicate with your readers or followers. In this instance you will use a mailing list provider such as "Dada Mail." Dada Mail allows you to…

Dada Mail is a free application that provides everything needed to manage email lists and design and send email newsletters in a professional looking and easy-to-use format. While Dada Mail strives to…

Dada Mail is a browser-based email mailing list manager. List messages are sent via a browser form. Subscription confirmations are done by clicking on links in the received email. The service uses CGI…

As hard drive sizes increase it is important to consider how much of the hard drive space a computer can actually use. The maximum amount of hard drive storage space available to a computer depends on…

Flexible flat cable, or FFC, ribbon cable is a generic term used to describe flexible and flat electrical cable used in compact electronic devices.

Transferring your old vinyl and cassette collection on to your computer's hard drive can allow you to preserve the quality of music contained on deteriorating media sources. Most modern turntables…

ATA, or advanced technological attachment, is a name associated with hard disk drives. These drives, also known as IDE, or integrated drive electronics, are now referred to as Parallel ATA drives.…

Many people have extensive collections of old vinyl records and would love to load the music onto their iPods. It is relatively easy to digitize a song from a vinyl record. Once you have the correct…

The term universal serial bus (USB) refers to an interface certain peripheral devices use to connect to a computer. Devices connect externally to ports located on the front or back of a desktop…

Final Cut Pro is video editing software that allows users to create commercials, movies, music videos and other types of videos. It combines audio and video and allows for special effects, editing and…

Fastrack, or FastTrak, refers to a series of PCI cards Promise Technology developed and manufactured to allow computers to create and recognize IDE RAID configurations. Older operating systems such as…

A hard drive should be accessed by the computer frequently when powering the machine on or when using applications. However, it is not normal for the computer to have constant hard drive activity.…

If you have two hard drives and the same files stored on both, you can view the files' details in Windows to compare basic information for both versions. This type of comparison lets you identify the…

Drive strength is one of many factors that allows a computer to perform at optimal levels. Several factors determine drive strength including speed, available space and overall capacity.

Zeitronix Datalogger refers to a hardware and software system manufactured by the U.S. company Zeitronix for measuring and recording data, such as air-to-fuel ratio and throttle position, in engines.…

Integrated drive electronics (IDE) refers to interface hard disk drives used to connect internally to the motherboard. Desktop hard drives require a 40-pin cable to connect to the motherboard, whereas…

Serial and Parallel ATA data cables are used to connect internal storage devices, such as hard disk drives, to computer motherboards. In the event that you wish to connect a USB storage device to a…

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defines specifications for US products, services, processes and systems. Four ANSI standards exist for connecting hard drives: IDE, ATA, ATA-2 and…

Computers manufactured in the 1990s and early 2000s used the IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) interface to connect hard disk drives and optical drives to the computer. Modern systems use SATA…

A computer can easily accumulate tens or even hundreds of thousands of files after it has been in use for several years. If all of these files were in one location, it would be impossible for a user…

The cables inside your computer can at times look like a rat nest of lines, but with some patience you can rearrange the cables for better airflow and heat management. However, the hardest cable to…

The IDE interface is used to connect a hard disk drive or optical drive to a computer. Newer hard drives use the SATA interface to connect to the main board and power supply. SATA has largely replaced…

Both CD and DVD optical drives have a tendency to fail quite frequently, and they usually fail more quickly than many other computer drives. There are several reasons for optical drive failure,…

A hard drive caddy is an external disk enclosure used to connect one or two internal hard drives to a computer. Icy Box drive caddies are a series of disk enclosure products.

Ribbon cables, named for their resemblance to fabric ribbons, are common used to connect hardware devices inside of personal computers. They support connections between a number of hardware…

Memory -- particularly random access memory, or RAM -- proves critical to your computer's speed and performance. You can use OEM memory to upgrade your computer for a lower price than you'd spend on…

The solid state drive (SSD) is a breakthrough hard drive technology that removes the moving parts from a standard hard drive and replaces them with flash memory. Flash memory is the same memory found…

The Acer TravelMate 4070 is a series of laptop computers with Pentium M processors and 15- or 15.4-inch screens. As with any laptop computer, the usefulness of the TravelMate 4070 without an…

Serial ATA (SATA) technology is used in computers to connect hard drives and optical drives to the motherboard. Far superior to the older IDE interface that it was designed to replace, SATA provides…

Hard drives released before the development of SATA (Serial ATA) used PATA (Parallel ATA) technology. PATA devices are commonly referred as ATA or IDE. ATA/IDE hard drives transfer data at speeds up…

Computer designers usually divide hard disks into a number of partitions to manage files and folders effectively. Partitions receive a drive letter so that operating systems can identify them.…

Hard drives are the devices found inside computers that store the data used in normal operations on computers. Hard drive platters are metal disks that are lined in a thin layer of magnetic material.…

The original ATA standard for IDE hard drives was limited to no more than 528 MB capacity and supported PIO modes 0, 1 and 2. This limitation was due to the number of bits used by the processor, BIOS…

The printed circuit board (PCB) on any device stands for the copper and plastic circuits that exist within a neatly organized board that contains all the working components of the device including…

Computer users in the United States and many other jurisdictions have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to storing information on a personal computer. In order to keep anyone from…

As computer users store more files on their computer's hard drives, storage space can become an issue. Beyond just the pictures, songs, videos and other documents, computer hard drives can quickly…

Your computer's internal hard drives can be locked or unlocked through a DOS prompt in Windows. If you have a locked mounted internal hard drive, you will need to unlock it to write information to it.…

Adding storage to a personal computer today is less expensive than ever. With every passing year, consumers are treated with reductions in cost regarding hard drives. Adding a 60 gigabyte hard drive…

All the drives in a computer are assigned a different letter; the D drive usually refers to the computer's CD or DVD drive. When music plays from a disc, the mechanical parts inside the drive will…

Four organizations are ultimately responsible for developing and deploying ATA standards: the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Information Technology Industry Counsil (ITIC), National…

The Virtual Machine Server (VM Server) is an application that allows I.T. workers to install multiple operating systems -- called virtual machines -- on a single dedicated computer. The resources of…

PC users might have multitudinous data and files stored on the hard drive, and finding anything by name becomes increasingly difficult. The Search functionality in the Windows operating system makes…

When trying to purchase or research a computer, you may see a lot of unfamiliar terms. One of these may have been something like "80GB Ultra DMA." That may not make a lot of sense to somebody who…

Toshiba computers have been around for a long time and are generally known to be fairly good machines. Not much is different when it comes to Toshiba's Satellite L30, which debuted in 2006. Being well…

The IBM X330 is a business server used to control information and send data between different connected computer systems and other hardware. The IBM X330 often has connected hard drives, giving all…

Often, in office environments, an employer may run checks to ensure that employees with access to the Internet are using it strictly for work purposes. Or perhaps you'd simply like to remember a…

The Compaq Evo N610 is a notebook computer with a Pentium 4-M processor, Windows operating system and up to 512 megabytes of RAM. Although these specifications are important to understand, you should…

An ATA 100 hard drive is a type of advanced technology attachment hard disk drive that can be used to store and transmit data to and from the motherboard and the drive itself.

With Camtasia Studio 7.1, you can not only record audio and video, but also capture screencasts of whatever is happening on the computer monitor. Educators use this program to enhance their regular…

A hard drive caddy, also called an external hard drive enclosure, is a peripherial that encloses your hard drive in a case. This allows the hard drive to be quickly and easily moved between computers.…

There are two kinds of hard drives available in the market, namely IDE and the newer SATA hard drive. Both types of hard drive work as a storage device for the computer, but they are connected in…

In computer terms, the word "crack" means to unlock or access. If your hard drive has been locked, you will need to unlock it to access it. Hard drives are often locked to prevent data from…

IDE, SATA and Firewire are three names that are commonly used when referring to different types of hard drives. While they look very similar on the outside, they are very different in the way they…

Your hard drive can be toggled to be locked or unlocked. Locking your hard drive means that no new data can be written or deleted unless the drive is first unlocked. If your IBM DADA hard drive is…

When a Toshiba hard drive has been locked, you will need to unlock it to install new software. You can lock your hard drive's as a security precaution to prevent its data from being overwritten.…

The Dell Inspiron was released in late 2004 as a budget laptop that shipped standard with either a 30GB or 40GB Ultra ATA hard drive. Finding replacement drives is becoming more difficult as Ultra…

Toshiba computers come with a variety of diagnostic tools that can help you find out what is going on when your hard drive encounters problems. Different models may contain different tools, so to find…

There are a variety of hard drives with capacities of 500 gigabytes (GB) and speeds of 5,400 revolutions per minute (RPM). The two specifications refer to how much the hard drive can hold and how…

The iPod Dock cable contains a series of proprietary pins that interlock with the connectors on an iPod, iPhone or iPad. To attach an external USB hard drive to a computer using the iPod Dock cable,…

EIDE stands for the Enhanced IDE standard, facilitating a newer and more effective method of data communication over the regular IDE standard for hard drives. Optimizing your EIDE drive on your system…

The file properties on your computer's hard drive can become locked, preventing you from making changes to the files and folders. They will remain so until you remedy the situation. You can do this by…

Your computer's hard drive is a mechanical system that operates by reading data from a flat disk platter spinning at high speed. Typically, a short delay occurs as the drive searches the rotating disk…

In recent years the Internet has become home to thousands of video-sharing websites with more popping up each day. As computers have become more powerful, many of these websites have begun offering…

Older computers use the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface for hard drives and optical drives. Motherboards with IDE connections typically offer only two IDE ports -- you can only use up to…

The platters in a hard drive are the physical storage location in the drive itself. Everything else in the hard drive is mechanics and electronics specific to these platters. A hard drive may house…

There are several ways to make a computer support a bigger hard drive, depending on which limitation in hard drive size is causing the problem. Some motherboards have physical limitations that can be…

Forensic examination of a hard drive can be performed using specialized forensic software or data recovery software and scanning the drive for files. This can be done by removing the hard drive from…

The Lenovo ThinkPad T43 is a laptop that comes with 256 MB to 1 GB of installed memory. It has either a 14.1- or 15-inch screen, and it has an Intel Mobile Pentium M processor. Only ThinkPad hard…

A media player holds anything from audio to video files and plays the data either through a built-in program, or via software installed on a computer. Although most media players are factory created,…

A computer system only has a select number of internal hard drive connection points, so if you are looking to add additional drives to the computer you may need the help of a port multiplier. This…

The IBM ThinkPad T21 notebook computer comes installed with a 10GB, 20GB or 32GB hard drive. Sometimes, these hard drives can burn out or become unable to meet your storage needs, forcing you to…

Choosing the right hard drive for recording can be a challenge, as the market is flooded with hundreds of seemingly good hard drives. You need to take into account three factors while choosing your…

The speed of a hard drive has a direct impact on how quickly games and game levels load. The bulk of the in-game work is done using the RAM and GPU. However, when virtual memory kicks in, the speed of…

Booting a system hard drive and loading it in another computer requires a reinstalling of the bootable operating system on the drive, as Windows is tied to the hardware configuration of the old…

Drivers are programs that allow your hardware components to communicate with your computer. Regularly updating drivers for your various hardware devices should be a part of your regular system…

Ribbon cables on hard drives are integrated device electronics cables, or just IDE cables for short. They are a flat 80- or 40-pin cable, often gray in color with a red stripe to mark the first pin.

Hard drives are necessary for any computer to store its programs and information in a secure location so that information can be recalled on command. All computers have a hard drive built into them.…

A hard drive is an important part of your computer's storage system. Four principal components are found within a hard drive.

Syncing two computers together to create a small LAN (local area network) enables you to share files and play games between the two machines. Creating a network hard drive on one of the computers…

Your computer's hard drive records all generated data and stores it magnetically into internal discs. If it fails, all stored information and memory could be erased, causing you to lose important…

The computer hard drive, short for hard disk drive, is the internal device that saves and stores all of the computer's data. The computer's file system is also contained in the hard drive. Computer…

As with all computer technology, any hardware device is subject to unforeseen operating circumstances that may result in its inability to perform as expected by the engineering teams. As such, there…

The initial preparation of your system hard drive prior to installing an operating system lays down a file system image on the drive, which is akin to a blueprint describing to the operating system…

VHS was the recording format of choice in the 1980s. In addition to being used in VCRs, VHS tapes were used in consumer video cameras to capture users' precious memories. With the advent of digital…

With programs growing larger and larger in size, hard drives have had to evolve quickly to keep up. In 2000, a 2 gigabyte hard drive was considered to be large, but 10 years later there are games that…

Many computer users have multiple hard drives to store their larger files and backup important data. If you want to synchronize two hard drives together, use the built-in program provided with the…

Expanding your Gateway P-172X laptop hard drive, which comes preinstalled with Windows Vista, is a great way to create some extra space on your laptop. To expand the usable space on your laptop, you…

In order to use a computer, a hard drive is required. It will store all of the essential files needed to run the computer. However, hard drives are prone to failures, mostly because of their moving…

ATA and IDE synonymously refer to the ANSI standard for sending data between a storage device with integrated controller electronics and the motherboard. In wider terminology, IDE can refer to the…

TV on the PC is not a new idea. It's been around since the 1990s, and with increasing technology has only gotten better. However, there's not always time to sit and watch shows as they are airing…

Combining two hard drives to act as a single logical drive has several advantages. The most prominent advantage is that it decreases the loading speed from the drives as the data is simultaneously…

Combining two hard drives to appear as one logical drive within the operating system allows for a simpler data management hierarchy and increased data transfer speeds, as two independent drives are…

Different types of hard disk drives use various types of interfaces to connect to a computer motherboard. ATA, or Advanced Technology Attachment is one of those interfaces, but it is being used less…

Hard drives provide data storage for your computer. When downloading files or saving a document, the information is written to the hard drive. Many computer owners install their own hard drive at some…

Since its inception in 2003 the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment hard drive specification has quickly become the default standard in hard drive selection. There remain, however, many computer…

The storage capacity of hard drives is not finite, and has been consistently increasing at an exponential rate since they were first introduced in the 1950s.

Iomega external hard drives are used for transferring data to and from a computer and keeping it safe. When your Iomega external hard drive isn't powering on properly, you will not be able to back up…

If you have a library of music on vinyl and would like to preserve your collection on a computer hard drive, a few pieces of equipment will help you make digital backup copies. When you have…

A solid-state disk is a flash-memory computer-storage device, but it's not a hard disk drive at all. Unlike hard disks, which contain spinning platters and moving actuator arms, SSDs contain no moving…

To locate the metal case surrounding the hard drive, first locate the hard drive itself. This process varies depending on whether using a laptop or desktop computer. No matter what kind of computer…

CyberLink's PowerDVD, a media player that allows you to play both DVDs and CDs, features many options to control the quality of media playback. In addition, its programs menu permits you to easily…

If you're searching for a particular file on your computer, you do not have to rummage through every single folder, because your computer system has numerous ways to search through your hard drive.…

Computers are made up of a number of integral components. One of these components, the hard drive, stores data for PCs. A PATA, or Parallel ATA drive, is one such hard drive system.

A multimedia hard drive is a drive whose primary use is to store multimedia files such as movies, videos or music information. Sharing this drive across your home network enables all network computer…

Apple's Time Machine software is an invaluable resource for protecting documents, music and photos. Many people, especially those with laptops, find it difficult to consistently keep their computers…

Swapping program files between hard drives is necessary when you have a faster and slower drive on the computer, and wish to move a particularly important program to the faster drive. Accomplish this…

Merging the information contained on two hard drives to a single drive is a good idea, for organization purposes, if your larger drive has sufficient room to hold all of those files. Use the disk…

Having two hard drives connected to your computer is not only useful as it increases the amount of space you have available but it can also increase your system performance. A second hard drive is…

The Windows operating system ships with an indexing service that enables you to speed the search rate of your computer by keeping your drive organized in a structured fashion. Enable this service on…

If you have your important data stored on your external hard drive and you want to download it to your computer, you can use one of the applications designed specifically for moving data safely from…

If you want to start fresh on one of your computer's hard drives and erase everything, you will need to reformat it. Make sure you save any files you want to keep onto CDs, DVDs or an external hard…

The hard drive is the brain of a computer system. It stores all the files and programs that you use and shuffles them accordingly when you switch from one program to another or are running multiple…

An IDE hard drive is a drive that uses a Parallel ATA connection, which is informally called IDE. The term IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics interface. Hard drives first used the IDE…

You might see or hear references to "master" and "slave" drives in your computer and wonder what they are. In terms of their status, the master drive is the one in command, while the slave drive is…

If you are preparing to give away or sell a computer and you want to make sure there is no leftover personal information stored on the computer, reset the computer's hard drive. Completely resetting…

The 320GB Verbatim 2.5-inch pocket hard drive is an external hard drive from Verbatim Corp., a North Carolina company that specializes in storage media and flash memory. Marketed under the brand name…

Saving all of your photos, movies and MP3 files to your hard drive has one serious drawback--they are space hogs. These files can quickly fill up an 80GB hard drive leaving little room for your…

Western Digital (WD) makes a variety of hard drives for desktop and laptop computers. Its most popular line is the MyBook series external hard disk drives. The Mybook hard drive's outer case can be…

Computer companies and private computer builders often use computer cases that vary widely in design. As a result, the physical location of some hardware components may differ greatly from one…

Dual booting allows you to run multiple operating systems on independent internal hard drives. This may be two instances of the same operating system, to allow for a backup in the case of a drive…

The hard drive serves as the primary data storage device for computers. There may be circumstances where PC users may need or desire to remove the hard drive. A hard drive caddy helps with this task.

As the names suggest, a "physical drive" is a disk drive that physically exists and a "logical" drive refers to the logical allocation of space within that drive.

Microsoft Windows operating systems allow users to share files and folders across a network and to share entire drives. Drives are simply recognized as another folder or directory and have the same…

Created by Western Digital in the mid 1980's, the original IDE drive was designed to combine a device controller with a hard drive. In 1994 this design was improved upon, giving this new version the…

Installing a new hard drive in a Windows PC is usually a plug-and-play affair. When you install the drive, Windows should automatically recognize the drive and prepare it for use. There are instances,…

The majority of external hard drives include more than one computer output for attaching to a computer. Multiple external hard drives can be linked together, also know as being…

The hard drive and memory are two of the most important parts of a computer. Although they are different devices, they both work in tandem to read and write data.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. It is a way to group hard drives together to either improve drive performance, streamline backup systems, or both. There are different kinds of…

A hard drive is a storage device used in most computers. 40 GB is a term that describes the amount of storage space the hard drive has.

Data stored on your hard drive, that you do not want to transfer to a flash drive or other media, can be shared via the Internet by turning your desktop computer into an FTP server. To enable users to…

When connecting a new hard drive (either external or internal) to your computer, you need to enable the device before the computer is able to detect and use the device. Although this may just require…

An essential piece of hardware, the hard drive is used for storing all kinds of data. Everything from the smallest image files to large operating systems is stored on them. A gigabyte is the…

Hard drive capacity is the amount of data you can store on a computer's hard drive. This is important information, as it gives you an idea as to how much capacity you have for storing programs,…

From a functional standpoint, a 2.5-inch drive and a 3.5-inch drive are identical. They use the same technology to accomplish the same goal. They differ, however, in size and form factor, as well as…

The hard drive is the device on which all data for a computer is stored. It is one of the only devices on a computer that is made up of moving parts, so it is more prone to failure than any other…

Hard drive size is a concern to PC users because of large files, such as music, photos and videos. The developers of operating systems simplify the process of saving almost any file to the hard drive,…

For a computer to function, it must have a hard drive in place. The internal hard drive is one of the key components of a computer, as it the device that allows for long-term data storage, ranging…

Installing a hard disk is a great way to increase the usefulness of your computer. It's especially rewarding when you want to bring information from one computer to another. Virtually all desktop…

"RPM" stands for "Revolutions Per Minute." It refers to how fast a mechanical hard disk's internal platters spin. While faster is usually better in this case, there are good reasons for choosing a…

The Windows operating system automates and manages most of the functions and processes on your PC, freeing you to concentrate on your preference of activities, such as entertainment (listening to…

A computer user may wish to empty the entire contents of her hard drive for many reasons. These reasons vary from recovering from a virus infection to installing a hard drive into a new computer from…

Backing up important data is practicable with the ease of duplicating a hard drive. The cost of hard drive space is now below 10 cents per GB of data, allowing an affordable option for safe data…

You can program a hard drive by formatting the drive and then installing an operating system, such as Windows, Mac OS or Linux. You format the hard drive by running a software program on the drive…

Slicking your hard drive refers to the process of smoothing out the magnetic information currently stored to the tape on the drive, erasing the drive's contents to prepare it for disposal or…

A hard drive replicator copies the content of one hard drive to another one. It is mainly used in medium to large companies when they need the same software, operating system and security policies…

If you have noticed that your computer is running slower than it once did, or you find that a virus or malware has infected your computer, you can restore your hard drive to a date on which your…

A computer relies on its hard drive to store nearly everything that it needs to operate, including all of its programs and data. Hard drive capacity has steadily increased while the cost and physical…

Watching your favorite television shows in HD doesn’t have to be a costly process. In fact, using free HD signals captured from over-the-air broadcasts, you can turn your computer into a cheap…

Unassigned portions of your hard drive contain no formatting or partition information. Formatting and partition tables are small sections of the hard drive that allow your operating system to save…

Modern PCs are an essential tool in people's lives at home and work. PCs can be multimedia hubs at home for downloading high-definition DVD movies and TV shows. At work, PCs are the heart of most…

MP3 players have almost made CDs obsolete, mainly because they are so convenient. Music lovers can store their entire music collections in portable music players. If you have some old CDs that you…

It is important to know certain elements of your computer hardware prior to installing software. All programs require a minimum amount of free hard drive space, as well as a minimum amount of RAM to…

Copying the information on a VCD, or Video CD, disc to a computer's hard drive enables a user to store a backup copy of the digital media file, allowing you to make a replacement if the original disc…

Like most computers, the HP Pavilion Slimline s3020n Desktop PC has a built-in hard drive that can be removed using little more than a Phillips screwdriver. Although the process is time-consuming and…

A computer crash can put years of valuable data at risk, but there are ways to retrieve that data and keep it safe. When you suffer from a computer crash, the key is to move quickly---the sooner you…

The hard drive is responsible for most of the storage needs of the computer. Entry-level hard drives store hundreds of gigabytes of data, and the largest hard drives store thousands. Though computer…

When connecting two hard drives into the same system, slaving one drive can be useful for secondary storage or hard drive recovery. The slave setting is selected by placing a jumper on in a…

A hard drive is a physical disc where all data is stored in a computer. Each computer can have more than one hard drive installed, though usually only one contains the operating system, such as…

If you bought a branded computer then most likely it has an OEM hard drive. Although there are no hardware differences between a retail hard drive and an OEM one, the OEM hard drive typically comes…

Despite their differences, flash memory and hard disks have something in common: they are both what is known as non-volatile memory. Non-volatile memory, unlike volatile memory, retains its data even…

Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) hard drives and their classifications are one of the more muddled among computer technology. Different companies designed different IDE hard drive standards with…

Your computer's hard drive may contain media files that you wish to play on your television at a later time. However, you may not wish to connect the computer to your television every time you want to…

The file folder system used on a computer hard drive provides a way of sorting and storing similar files or file types. By saving items into an appropriate folder, you can make the folders easier to…

The Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) is a hardware interface for connecting computer motherboards to storage disc drives, or optical disc drives. The technology replaces and evolves from…

A computer hard drive is a physical hard disc that contains metallic disc platters used to store data. Hard drives often contain important personal or financial information; completely destroying the…

An IBM 60MB WD-387 is an older hard drive that utilizes the IDE interface. Reading information off of this drive is a matter of connecting it to your computer, after which the system will auto-detect…

Every hard drive stores a copy of the history of what has been conducted on it in a hidden file called the index.dat file. Even when you delete Internet history, it's not really completely gone from…

A hard drive interface represents the connection method used by the hard drive to communicate with the computer. A computer’s performance is directly related to the speed of the hard drive unit,…

Slave and Master drives are settings that must be configured where using two or more IDE drives within the same computer. This helps to keep data appropriately separate where multiple drives are…

As with any program, installed games such as Magic Online may become corrupt or have their installation paths changed inadvertently during use. This corruption can cause the program's automatic…

Forensic analysis of a computer hard drive takes patience, skill and a calculated set of steps to deliver an accurate report. Expert forensic analysts use a wide variety of software and hardware tools…

Microsoft Windows contains an Add or Remove Programs tool that you can use to remove programs you do not need. However, some programs do not have an uninstall wizard for this tool to use and some are…

Computer hard drives run on a single data channel called an IDE port. When there are two drives installed in the computer, there will be a primary drive called the "Master" and a secondary drive…

Over time, hard drives develop errors and corruption, which cause your computer to run more slowly and less efficiently. Some viruses can wipe out an entire operating system very quickly. When this…

After installing a new or additional hard drive in your computer, the drive must be configured before it is recognized by the system. Configuring the drive not only includes formatting the drive, but…

Your hard drive is the single most important component of your computer system. If RAM (Random Access Memory) fails, you can buy new RAM, and even if the motherboard dies, you can replace it. But if…

Merging the files and programs from one hard drive to another can be necessary when upgrading to a larger drive size. Placing all of your programs on a single drive can help to keep your computer's…

Depending on the model, replacing a hard drive can be either an arduous task or an extremely simple procedure. Fortunately, the Compaq Presario V3000 is the latter; thus, it is also a simple task to…

There are times when you may want to duplicate your hard disk as an emergency measure, say, in the event a virus strikes and your hard disk is destroyed. In such cases, you could get your software and…

Gigabytes (GB) and Terabytes (TB) are two measures of computer data capacity. By doing some simple multiplication, you can easily convert GB to TB to find out how much storage capacity your hard…

NTFS (New Technology File System) is the next generation of file systems used by Windows NT, replacing Microsoft's original FAT32 system. Not only does NTFS improve the performance of your computer,…

A 60GB (gigabyte) hard disk drive (HDD) is a computer storage device that is able to store up to 60GB of data. The HDD is the largest and most important storage media in a computer, containing the…

Oftentimes, the best way to ensure fast and efficient computing is to purchase a new machine. But even if your old computer is slow or damaged, there may be data on the hard drive that you want to…

Mirroring a hard drive is the process of creating an exact byte by byte replication of a current working system volume. Mirroring a hard drive is an important task for computer users to understand as…

When it comes to disposing of your hard drive, throwing it in the trash isn't a safe option. A hard drive can be used by identity thieves to glean your personal information or by competitors to steal…

SATA hard drives are the newest type of hard drives in personal computers. SATA stands for serial advanced technology attachment. Older standard IDE drives are now referred to as parallel drives. As…

When it's time to purchase a hard drive for your computer, make sure you consider all the options. There is always the traditional hard drive, but now there is a new option: the SSD, or solid-state…

There is the obvious advantage of extra storage space when including a second hard drive in your computer, but having a second hard drive provides more benefits than just more space. Because your…

Your computer starts when you turn on the "Power" button--at least, that's how it's supposed to work. If absolutely nothing happens, then your computer is not starting and you have a serious problem…

Microsoft Windows allows you to set up your computer to boot from two different hard drives. You can install either two copies of the same version of Windows or two different versions of Windows to…

Computer hard drives vary widely in size. Older machines often have drives that offer only a few gigabytes worth of space, while new computers provide many hundreds or even several thousands of…

Computers are increasingly used to store confidential information such as personal, financial or medical records. This information is magnetically stored on the computer's hard drive, and should be…

Computer owner might want to upload information from one hard drive to another for any number of reasons. A computer owners who purchase a new PC will need a convenient way to transfer personal files…

The Apple Time Capsule is a wireless hard drive that is built specifically to work in conjunction with the Mac OS X Time Machine backup utility. The original Time Capsule models shipped with either a…

The amount of free hard drive space on your PC is sometimes necessary to know. Keeping tabs on how much room is left on your computer allows you to estimate exactly how much data can be retained by…

No matter what type of computer you have or what you use it for, it is important to know what type of software is installed on the unit. Checking the installed software on your computer's hard drive…

Hard drive technology is at a crossroads in 2011 and moving toward the future. This is because in addition to magnetic hard drive speeds increasing, flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) are…

Regardless of whether the hard drive on a computer is easy to replace, as it is in the Compaq c500 Notebook, or difficult, as it is in many desktop computers, doing so with a bad hard drive with all…

Most computers have just a single hard drive. But for those who want the most out of their computers, RAID is the only way to go. RAID, or "Redundant Array of Independent Disks," is a technology that…

Hard drive prices are continually dropping while the storage capacity of the drives increases. You can now obtain a hard drive over one terabyte in size (one thousand gigabytes). If you have a smaller…

Storage is always important in computers, and one way to increase it is by adding a second hard drive. This can easily be done in most desktop computers. There are two main types of hard drive:…

When your hard drive starts making noise, it is often a sign that it is failing. Sometimes, a noisy hard drive simply means it is overheating or rubbing against the metal mounting inside the PC case.…

Most often, users add a second hard drive to a computer to increase storage space. The more that computers are used to store and play large multimedia files, the greater the need for extra hard drive…

Now that AOL has joined the 21st century and finally allowed POP and IMAP mail programs access to AOL accounts, the easiest way to download AOL mail to your hard drive is to use a third-party email…

Doubling the number of hard drives in your computer will greatly increase your storage space, allowing you to store larger files without fearing that you might run out of space for vital programs.…

Among older hard disk drives (HDDs), there are a few different standards. Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) and Enhanced Integrated Device Electronics (EIDE) are two such standards. However, IDE and…

Unless needed for a specific media format, you are likely unable to play your .gi Audio Utility files on a variety of video or audio programs. ITunes, the most popular multimedia player, will not…

Development of the IDE hard drive specification was an innovation leading to the rapid development of the personal computer. IDE drives incorporate the data logic controller interface as an integrated…

Whether you are purchasing a new computer for your home or new computers for an entire office, you are probably wondering what to do with all of that old equipment. You could just give the old…

If you have a small home or office network, you can place an entire hard drive on the network to easily pass files between each machine. Before you can access the hard drive from a remote machine, you…

Flashing a BIOS ROM is a procedure used to update the basic firmware that dictates how hardware operates within a computer. BIOS firmware is most commonly updated on a computer motherboard, but BIOS…

Installing a hard drive in a system, whether an add-on or a new drive, can present technical problems. If the motherboard does not support larger hard drives, you may not be able to get the full use…

Selling old hard drives, laptops and desktops is a nice way to make money. However, if you keep sensitive information on your computer, such as credit cards, contacts, tax information or confidential…

It's always a good idea to uninstall hardware before physically removing it. Computer hard drives can usually be removed without any problems. However, there is the possibility of a conflict with the…

Choosing a hard drive can be a difficult task. Hard drives with the same capacity made by different manufacturers are generally priced similarly, making it difficult to determine whether one is better…

Many people have considered attempting to open a hard drive, whether for the purpose of "modding" it or to recover lost data. Opening a hard drive has a strong possibility of rendering it unusable,…

Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) is a technology used by all modern hard drives, which allows a drive to monitor its own errors and predict when those errors might become…

Whether you are having problems with the software currently installed on your primary hard drive or simply wish to load a different operating system or software set, overriding your default hard drive…

It's much less expensive to replace a hard drive that's overfilled than it is to buy a new computer with a bigger hard drive. And who doesn't want to save money? Now, what to do with the old hard…

Whether you've had a system crash, your hard drive's motor has burned out or your hard drive refuses to read or write, having a dead hard drive can definitely be a problem. However, even though it may…

While shopping for a new hard drive, you may have seen the terms "2.5 inch" and "3.5 inch" and wondered what they meant. The two terms describe different form factors that hard drives can be…

The topic of hard drive interfaces, as of 2009, is split into two sub categories. Internal hard drive interfaces include the EIDE and SATA standard, while the external hard drive market is split…

The ATA, or EIDE, hard drive was for many years the de facto standard for interfacing hard drives and optical disc drives to computer systems. Despite being superseded by the newer SATA standard in…

One major component of all computers is the hard drive. Hard drives have advanced significantly over the past five years. Companies and hard drive manufacturers can now cram massive amounts of storage…

Generally there are only a few areas available as potential hard drive mounting points. The specific hard drive mounting areas differ between case designs; however, this differentiation is usually…

Each hard drive, regardless of size, has three main components: the platter, the spindle motor and the read/write heads. It is these components that make it possible to store data on the drive.

Bad blocks happen when there is physical damage to the hard disk. It is not possible to actually "fix" a bad block, but you can tell the disk to ignore them.

PATA (Parallel ATA) drives were one of the earliest drive types available to home computer users. Designed to be an inexpensive and commercially common technology, PATA drives were the industry…

A bad hard drive can signal the loss of personal data, which can be a traumatic event in this information age. Spotting the symptoms in advance can save your files before a hard drive crash.

The IDE, or integrated drive electronics, interface is a computer drive data transfer specification introduced by the Western Digital Corporation in 1986. Commonly known today as parallel ATA, due to…

For most people, the hard drive is the most important component in a computer. The hard drive stores all of your emails, photos, music and other keepsakes. A number of problems can afflict IDE (also…

There are currently five major hard drive types. All five kinds of hard drives are used by a variety of different devices. However, they all serve one main purpose: to store data.

One of the key components of a computer system is the hard disk drive (HDD). It contains the operating system, programs and user-created files. While the operation of a hard disk drive is…

With the popularity of iPods, digital cameras and digital camcorders, many people are finding their computer hard drives filling up quickly. Installing a new, larger hard drive is not a difficult…

When you are replacing a hard drive, upgrading your system or buying a new computer, you may need to switch your OS between two hard drives in order to retain your data. The easiest way to do this is…

You might have recently purchased a new computer and are curious about the size of the hard drive for that particular machine. Knowing the size of a computer's hard drive can allow you to gauge how…

A hard drive is an essential part of your computer. The hard drive is the hardware component that stores your important data. You may not know that inside a hard drive are many parts, some moving,…

Hard drives are essential to computer functionality, enabling users to store data and programs permanently. Information saved on a hard drive is retained even when power is removed from the computer.…

CS stands for 'cable select.' It is the jumper setting on the hard drive that tells the hard drive to identify different hard drives as primary and secondary, depending on their position along a…

Hard drives are integral to computer function, providing a permanent, physical storage space for all files, folders and other content stored on the machine. Without a hard drive, the computer would be…

To select a hard drive, first determine the amount of storage space you require for your needs. The type of hard drive that best fits your computer configuration will also narrow your options.…

With the introduction of Windows XP, Microsoft made it simple to compress a hard drive to give the user extra storage space. But compression has the drawback of being somewhat unreliable and slow.…

Sometimes your hard drive just needs a fresh start. It's been acting sluggish, and it taking forever to boot up. You have a lot of programs on your PC that you don't use anymore. Perhaps you have…

An Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) drive is in the modern world more properly called the AT Attachment (ATA) drive. The name of the EIDE drive was introduced by Western Digital in 1994 in…

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) hard drives have 6, 8 or 10 pins on the drive, which have may jumpers installed on them to determine how the drive will be accessed by the computer system; these…

Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) hard drives are actually another name for a standard of drive communication known as ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) or PATA (Parallel ATA). ATA is…

In this age of high-speed data flow, you need a place to keep all of your files, photos, music and video. The hard drive is what stores it all, and many computer users have upgraded their hard drives…

The inner workings of a modern hard drive have various parts that work together to create a functioning storage unit. The parts look similar for both laptop and desktop hard drives.

Reviving a hard drive is not an exact science with guaranteed results, as luck is a definite part of the equation. Mechanical and electrical problems, hardware failures, corrupted software and user…

The HP Slim Line Pavilion desktop computer is designed to house all its internal hardware components in a very small space. While the design makes the computer easier to transport, it also means that…

Building a do-it-yourself external hard drive has many benefits. First, it allows you to pick out exactly which components and parts you are using. Second, it can save you some money. It will also…

Innovations in hard drive technology have led to a tremendous increase in hard drive sizes. A side effect of this spurt in technology is that the appetite for data has also seen a huge surge. A 2008…

Due to concerns about data security these days, it is important to know how to properly overwrite the data on your hard drive. There are some estimates that say you have to overwrite your data…

A bad hard drive can ruin your day, especially if you didn't see it coming. Most people have a lot of personal information and files on their computer that can't easily be recreated. To avoid a hard…

One of the most necessary parts of a computer is the hard drive. Besides storing digital information, hard disk drives also contain all of a computer's operating data, including the operating system.…

Advances in computer hardware technology have led to constantly increasing hard-drive capacities. A 500-GB hard drive is common on most new computers, and the sizes go all the way into the terabytes.…

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) grew out of the PFA (Predictive Failure Analysis) technology that IBM introduced in the early 1990s to monitor the hard drives in their…

Oftentimes, computer resellers provide stripped-down systems, built to the barest minimum, to keep the price down. This paring down of the system's capabilities will cause excessive hard disk…

There are two distinct categories that define how a hacker can gain access to your system. The first and probably most dangerous category is what is known as Malware, which also includes various…

Hard drives provide much-needed computer storage, and, according to Microsoft.com, new hard drive installation "is one of the most common upgrade tasks." However, there are some crucial differences…

When IDE drives were originally introduced, there was a need to manually configure each drive, using a jumper to short two clearly marked pins, to designate each individual drive as either a "Master"…

Computer hard drives are accessed on a constant basis by the system to access information and create new data for storage. These processes occur in large quantities, and accessing the hard drive can…

Unpartitioning a drive is a basic computer management task which is useful when one wants to change the file system type or types within one's hard drive. This process is also helpful when one wants…

Problems often arise when data on computer hard drives fall into the wrong hands. When you dispose of your computer, it's important that you remove all traces of data from it. Even if the only thing…

A computer system uses hundreds or even thousands of files, many of which are never seen by a normal user. Sometimes files and information can be hidden to prevent users from accessing it. However,…

"Hibernate" mode is a power-saving mode that laptops and desktop computers running Windows use to power off virtually all components of the computer, including the hard drive. Placing a computer in…

One way to completely remove the data from a hard drive is to write zeros (0) to the entire disk. Reformatting the disk or rewriting the partition table only changes the address table; it does not…

Since the advent of digital media, there has been a need to store and retrieve media. Internet hard drives have served to meet this need, offering a creative new solution to the issue of data storage.

Hard drive failure is an unwelcome situation that can cause problems for even the most savvy computer users. It is an unpleasant inevitability that all hard drives will eventually fail. But what…

Hard drives are the primary data storage devices used in computers that contain the operating system, program files and other data files such as images, documents, video and music. When a drive…

This article will help to identify internal hard drive data cables. There are three main types of cables: IDE/PATA, SATA and SCSI.

Hard drive formats include EIDE and ATA. Newer hard drives will also be advertised as being UDMA. This can be a little confusing for the person looking to buy a new hard drive, but in short, UDMA…

Hard drives are at the center of computers and countless other products. Nowadays, camcorders, music players, camcorders and many other types of personal electronic devices store information on hard…

The hard drive is an essential part of any computer. When the hard drive starts to malfunction, you know you have a serious problem on your hands. However, once you know what is wrong with the hard…

Identifying a hard drive can be of great importance when you need to check for information such as drive speed, connective interface and capacity. Luckily, checking the identifying information of a…

All desktop computers usually have an extra drive bay or a space that can be used to place a spare or slave hard drive. One type of system that can have a spare hard drive added as a slave is the…

Hard disk drives are a vital component of a computer and, without them, many computer configurations would not work. They are the unique repository for non-volatile storage in a computer workstation…

Most people brag about how big their hard drive is. However, most people don't have a understand what a megabyte or gigabyte is. When talking EIED and SATA I get this strange look like, what language…

Solid-state hard drives are drives that have no moving parts but rather use flash memory to store information. These drives aim to provide increased speed and stability, but they are currently…

A hard drive failure can occur at any time and can result in the loss of all of the data that is contained on the drive. Knowing the symptoms of pending hard drive problems will help to prepare for an…

The most often-encountered cause of system failure is a faulty hard drive. Nonoperational hard drives usually present a problem with a computer booting to its respective operating system. There are…

Writing zeros to a hard drive is quite easy. All you need is a special Linux distribution, called Knoppix, that runs completely off of CD or DVD so you don't need to install anything on the hard…

Hard drives can be salvaged from old computers for a number or reasons. Computers that are typically trashed need to have the hard drive either erased or removed from the machine. Old hard drives may…

As with all mechanical devices, hard drives have a limited lifespan. Abnormal hard drive noise can be one of the first signs of impending hard disc failure. By paying attention to the sounds computer…

Hard drives are pieces of computer hardware used to store data. As sizes of hard drives steadily increase, it's important to know what factors determine the capacity of a hard drive.

If you are looking for the luxury of saving and uploading your files from you external hard drive without having to drag it everywhere, now you can with IOGEAR Wireless USB Hub & Adapter kit. This kit…

We all rely heavily on our computers, using them in just about every facet of our lives. Our computer hard drives store everything from family budgets to baby pictures, music libraries to…

Hard drives are used to store computer data on plates that feature magnetic surfaces. Hard drives are used in all personal computers as the primary means of data storage. Each plate is composed of…

There are a number of reasons why a person would want to make an Amiga hard drive bootable. Perhaps your drive contains a second or different operating system and you would rather boot to that than…

Selecting a new hard drive or upgrade is a fairly simple process. However, it is best to make certain that you are getting the right type before buying. Most retail stores will not allow returns on…

With an incredible amount of personal and business data being stored on a computer's hard drive, security is a prime concern for both private individuals and businesses. Hard disk encryption may place…

Whenever you have problems with your computer, the first thing you should do is use ScanDisk to scan for any errors. Running ScanDisk is a very easy process.

Information or data stays on a hard drive indefinitely as long as the computer or hard drive is not damaged and the data is not deleted. Often, even if a computer is damaged, a professional can still…

Hard drives in computers are flat platters of varying physical sizes with read/write heads that put information from the computer software onto the drive or read information that has been saved on the…

One of the main benefits of increased hard-drive capacity is better, streamlined computer performance. Hard drives, like bodies, get bogged down in junk and need a thorough cleansing from time to…

Ghosting or cloning a hard drive is done for a variety of reasons but the most popular are upgrading to a new larger hard drive or as a backup in case of a hard drive failure on the primary drive or…

Computer hard drives contain one or more magnetic coated platters that store data, commands, settings and other system information. Some data is located in different areas of the hard drive depending…

DMA stands for "Direct Memory Addressing." This is a process where a section of memory inside your computer can access a device without going through the Central Processing Unit (CPU). Under most…

A hard drive is a storage device that can stores many types of data, including pictures, movies, text files, documents and applications. Hard drives increase in size, going from gigabytes to…

A computer hard drive is a complicated piece of machinery that is built to very close tolerances. They are also rather fragile devices; dropping a hard drive can completely destroy the drive and the…

You may have heard the term "reimage the drive" and didn't quite understand what it meant. Reimaging a drive can be done quite simply and quickly, but it is a very serious and destructive process to…

Serial ATA hard drives have multiple advantages over ATA drives. These include better cabling management, elimination of jumper cables to set master/slave configurations for two drives, lower power…

Early hard drives for PCs were called Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) and also known as Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drives after the interface used in the computer. These drives were the…

After having a computer for a few years, your hard drive can become just as personal as a diary. Over time, you collect countless files, from pictures to documents to passwords and other personal…

"Upgrade and expand" is the name of the game when it comes to technology, and computer systems are no different. Computer hardware advances in power and broadens in scope in what seems like weekly…

Connectivity is a word you'll hear often when performing just about any hardware assessment. Hard drives are no exception when it comes to the available types of connections you have at your disposal…

The hard drive in your Compaq computer is a hardware device that stores and retrieves data necessary to run your operating system and software. If you own more than one hard drive, you can switch the…

When considering the power of a computer, many people immediately think of the processor's clock speed or perhaps even the the front side bus speed as it limits the component's ability to communicate.…

When building a computer, many would argue that the hard drive is the most vital component to any machine. Where the processor acts as the heart of the computer, the hard drive acts as the brain,…

Though quickly losing favor in the world of modern computing, ultra DMA hard drives were once the standard for all desktop and laptop computing. Ultra DMA, also known as parallel ATA or PATA, is a…

Often overlooked in their importance, hard disk drives or "hard drives" are the backbone of modern computing storage. Valued for their ability to permanently store data, hard drives will have a place…

Hard drives are computer hardware that contain magnetic platters that spin and record bits of information or data. Learn more about how a hard drive works with this information from an experienced…

Ghosting a hard drive is creating an exact image of the contents of a hard drive on another hard drive. Ghost a hard drive to provide a backup copy of all files with help from an experienced computer…

Destroying a hard drive may be necessary to permanently destroy sensitive data. Learn various ways to permanently destroy a hard drive with this information from an experienced computer user in this…

Selecting a hard drive is based on what type of computer software will be used and what type of files will be stored. Hard drives are relatively cheap, so don't skimp when selecting a hard drive and…

A computer that has two hard drives will typically have a main hard drive with an individual address, called the master, and a secondary hard drive called the slave. Find out how to connect two…

The best computer hard drive has a competitive price, a high mean time between failures, a large storage capacity and a high storage speed. Discover the components of a great hard drive with…

Computer hard drives use magnetism to store data, and platters inside of the hard drive can spin up to 5,400, 7,200 and 10,000 revolutions per minute to read data. Discover how computer hard drives…

A hard drive is the main memory bank of a computer. If you lose it, your computer won't remember how to do anything, and you will lose all of your data. That's why saving a hard drive is important.…

Unlike magnetic hard drives, solid state hard drives have no moving parts and do not rely on magnetic fields to store data. Because they use electrical current, rather than motors and magnets, to…

Data on its lowest level is represented in binary, with only 1s and 0s. This system is at the basis of all digital technology. A computer hard drive functions on the same level, serving as a platform…

Hard drives are used to store to files and other information for your computer system. They contain virtually all the information necessary for your operating system to interact with other computer…

The way a computer stores and organizes files is called a file system. FAT32 and NTFS are types of file systems, FAT32 being the older type. Computers since Windows NT have come with the NTFS file…

Removing all of the data on your hard drive can be extremely important, especially if you have confidential or personal data that you do not want to be accessible. Simply formatting a hard drive will…

It can be difficult to find information such as music files, videos or text files on a large hard drive. To find a file, you need to know how to view your computer's hard drive.

Hard drives with 500 gigabytes of space provides a huge amount of memory, and they are often available as a simple USB drive that can easily hook up to a computer. Learn about 500 gigabyte hard drives…

Resetting a computer's hard drive requires running a de-fragment program, which scans the entire hard drive and cleans up files to make it run more efficiently. Reset a computer's hard drive with…

A hard disk drive is a device in a computer which stores digital data on a rotating magnetically charged disc called a platter, which resembles a small metallic compact disk. The term RPM stands for…

Deleting data may not always mean personal information is gone for good. People are discovering after selling computers or PDAs private information they thought was deleted can be accessed by the new…

Checking for a bad hard drive when you first suspect the drive may be going bad can prevent you from losing your data. By checking for a bad hard drive, you have a chance to possibly fix the problem…

Booting to a second or slave hard drive can be a necessity. If your operating system is not functioning properly, booting to your secondary hard drive could be your only solution. You can use the…

A hard disk allows massive amounts of data to be stored and retrieved quickly. Internal hard drives are installed within the computer's cabinet and connect directly to the motherboard. External hard…

If you got a brand new hard drive and plugged it in but don't see it in Computer, the heard drive probably isn't initialized yet. Before you can use the hard drive, you have to take steps to…

If your hard drive has begun to make a grinding noise that you do not usually associate with the typical use of your computer, there is a strong chance that your hard drive is failing or about to…

Over time, the hard disk drive on your Acer Travelmate will become full from all those family photos, word documents and new programs you've installed. If you are running out of room, you can easily…

No matter what kind of bells and whistles your computer came with, everything is in service to the stuff that's actually on it--all the programs, games, documents and multimedia that make up your hard…

The makeup of the items inside a hard drive is similar to the old record player. The hard drive is used to read and write data that is accessed by the computer. The actuator arm works hand in hand…

In certain instances, you may need to move an existing hard drive from one computer to another. One instance is when you purchase a new computer but want all of the files from the old computer to be…

If you enjoy working with media files such as photographs and videos, or if you are thinking of purchasing additional software, you may want to calculate your computer's hard drive size first, to…

Having your old computer sit around collecting dust in the corner only clutters up your home or apartment. When you decide to sell it, you may want to consider what you want to do about the old data…

If your computer is running slowly, you may need to shrink your hard drive to make more room for other pieces of information your computer needs to work smoothly. Hard drive compression is a simple…

If your computer is running slower these days and you want to speed things up, the first step is to optimize your hard drive. Optimizing your hard drive is safe, easy and very important to the proper…

When you have more than one computer, the time may come when you want to expand one computer at the expense of the other. Many times this will be because you want to use the hard drive from an old…

Making a hard drive bootable is a simple operation that has the potential to become a stressful operation. But it's a necessary procedure to get an operating system running on your computer. Use this…

There are a number of online tests that offer limited information, but if you want details on hard drive speed, you can download some impressive freeware that will test your hard drive over time and…

As you add files to your computer, it can become more difficult to locate the file you are looking for. The easy way to organize files is to make one or more separate directories on your hard drive…

Read a broken hard drive by running through the diagnostic utilities found under the "Error Checking" menu in the "Tools" section of the computer. Choose to automatically fix file system errors on a…

An in-home supercomputer is something not everyone has, and for someone that has an interest in computer hardware, building a computer system that is this powerful can be very rewarding. Having a…

When a computer has only one hard drive, it's standard to designate it as "Drive C." Drive A and Drive B are holdovers from the old days of floppy drives. It is when the user adds a second, third or…

You can create multiple partitions on a single hard drive that allows you to install multiple operating systems on the same drive. You can do this without creating any conflicts between the different…

Have you been trying to take charge of your life by implementing technology into more and more parts of it? Or, has all of the new technology suddenly taken charge of you? The steps listed below are…

Taking a hard drive out of a computer is a necessity to upgrade to a newer model. You may not have the required space for all of your music, videos and games and will need to add a new hard drive to…

The hard drive is what a computer uses to store all of its data and programs. Even when the computer is turned off, the hard drive is still able to retain the data. As computer systems become more…

Internal hard drives are the method on which computers store information. Over the past decades, the capacity, or "size," of hard drives have exploded. Several companies manufacture 500…

Hard disk drives can be found in many of the personal electrical devices on the market today. The basic hard drive holds up to 40 gigabytes of storage space. It is a type of non-volatile storage…

When files are saved, F drive will be available in the same way as C drive is, using the same operating system already installed on C drive. After the second drive is installed the new drive and…

According to experts in computer sales, the average life for a computer is four years. When speaking with computer experts you will find it is possible to get a few more years out of your computer by…

Hard drives fail for any number of reasons. Generally it is due to a mechanical, electrical or data corruption failures. Without going into deep analysis of what could be the problem here are a…

If your desktop computer needs extra storage, a second hard drive may be required. You can use your extra hard drive for documents, programs or extra devices. Setting up an extra hard drive will allow…

The hard drive is probably the most important piece of hardware you own. It contains all your data--every paper you have written, every digital picture, every music and video file, all your programs…

Each hard drive that is hooked up to your computer, internal or external, is assigned a letter to identify it. The default drive on your computer is often the C: drive, but all other drives are…

Nero 8, the Windows based media manager, may well be the Swiss army knife of digital media tools. Among its many features is the ability to record TV broadcasts and save them to your hard drive. The…

Hard disk problems can often be difficult to diagnose. There are a number of applications included in operating systems and available for purchase that can assist you with fixing a software glitch.…

When a hard drive is on the fritz you have to take the hard road of resetting it. Your hard drive is the brains of your computer which stores all the information. Without it nothing can be done and…

We normally do not map a hard drive unless that drive happens to be on a network drive. The benefit of mapping a hard drive that is on a network drive is that you may access the shared drive or…

With all of the new innovations in technology and the ever-changing software on the market, it is important to keep different forms of technology updated. One form of technology that needs sporadic…

Hard drive installation and tips. Learn how to plug in a hard drive in this free video about computer power supplies.

Learn about IDE hard drives, how to connect them, and how to install them with these video instructions.

Learn how to connect IDE hard drives, and other tips for installing hard drives on computers in this free video.

Learn about hard drives in this free video on hard drives.

Learn about hard drive cables in this free video on hard drives.

Learn information on hard drive options in this free video on hard drives on hard drives.

Computer programs are getting bigger and you will need to have enough storage for all your software. Learn all about the Apple MacBook air hard drive options that are available in this free video.

With the amount of sensitive information people store on computers, any problem with the computer can be a major disruption to your life. That's why it's good idea to get the hard drive inspected if…

You are happily working on your computer when you hear a new clicking, singing, whirring or scratching sound. Chances are you do not have a family of squirrels living in your computer. Hard drives…

The center of your computer's mind is the hard disk, where the computer stores all your information and keeps all the programs that you run. One of the most devastating things is to have a hard disk…

Moving your current hard drive, also known as an HDD, into another windows computer lets you avoid hours of moving files and likely losing important data along the way. Moving an HDD from one computer…

Learn about computer hard drives used to build a custom PC in this free instructional video.

A computer hard drive is a small silver box that holds all the information (data) including Windows and operating commands. A hard drive also contains all the software installed on the computer.…

Superficially, IDE and SATA hard drives look the same. They're the same dimensions and colored in the same manner. It's only if you read the jumble of letters and numbers on the label or look at the…

With identity theft becoming a growing problem, securely disposing of old hard drives is more important than ever. Simply deleting the contents of your old drives is not enough. Hard drives continue…

Computer hard drives can sometimes have errors form on them through normal use or power glitches. These errors can easily be fixed once they are detected. While it may seem like a difficult task,…

Depleting storage space and slower processing speeds are clear signals you need to buy a new hard drive for your computer. You may need one because the old one is damaged. There are many options…

When investigating a new or replacement hard disk, consider both capacity and speed.