How to Identify All Components In Your Hard Drive

Learn to understand the components of your Hard Drive, both inside and out so that your knowledge can help you make repairs on both your computer and that of your friends. Understandingall components will give your a better understanding of how you can make certain maintenance and repair procedures.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Here Is What The Hard Drive Look Like Inside The Hard Drive comes in various configurations but they have a
   lot in common with one another.Hard Drives are a very dependable,
   and cheap way to store data.However,the Hard Drive is the one
   component that is mostly likely to fail.
   
   
   
   In the Desktop,the Hard Drive can sometimes be a pain to get to since
   it may be tucked away under other components.This is one reason
   computers now come in the standard Tower configuration.The Hard
   Drive as well as most other components are centrally located and is
   within very easy reach.
2. Here Are The Major Components Of The Hard Drive And it seems that it happens at the worst possible time that the drive
   cause you to lose your important data,which by the way,you were
   planning to make backup copies,but you just have not had the time,
   just yet.
   
   
   The Hard Drive is mounted inside the System Unit and some Drives
   are re-movable Hard Drives,even though these are not common.
3. Your Hard Drive May Have To Be Mounted Onto RAILS These drives have platters that are fixed (not removable as the floppy
   disk) and cannot be removed the the drive itself.Hard Drives are
   controlled by a Disk Drive Controller right on the motherboard are
   may be a adapter card inserted into an adapter slot.
   
   
   
   Data is transmitted from the motherboard through the controller to the
   disk drive.The Ribbon cable is responsible for this transfer of data while the Power is supplied to the drive through a connector coming from the Power Supply.
4. Here Are The Read/Write Heads In The Hard Drive Components Of the Hard Drive,Inside And Out
   
   The Hard Drive is a sealed unit which prevents dirt and dust from
   getting inside.Here are the names of the components inside and
   outside the Hard Disk Drive.Click Here to see an opened Drive.
5. Now You See The Actuator Arm In The Hard Drive The Platter (s)..Rigid circular coated metals that stores data the
   Read/Write Heads which flies over the platters reading data
   
   The Actuator Arm which holds the read/writes heads,Voice Coil
   Actuator and it moves the read/write heads over the platters
   and the Spindle Motor...Spins the Platters in the drive
6. The Hard Drive's Spindles Next is the Printed Circuit Board where all Data and Power connections
   are attached. The Ribbon Cable allowing data to travel to the motherboard
   
   Power Connector that provides Power to the drive motors and the
   IDE Controller which transmits data between the main board and drive
7. Hard Drives Are Connected To The Motherboards By The Ribbon Cable Most of the electronics of the hard drive are contained on a Printed
   Circuit Board on the outside of the drive. The data and power connectors are attached to the circuit board
8. The Hard Disk Drive The IDE drives can support two drives per cable.One drive must be
   the Master while the other is the Slave.The jumpers on the drive
   must be set when assigning one as master and slave.The ROM chips
   in your PC must be able to recognize the drive.
   
   If you have an olderPC,and want to install a larger drive,check the BIOS to be sure the new drive is compatible your BIOS.

Tips & Warnings

• Before you remove the system unit cover to gain access to your hard drive, remember tor remove any and all ESD (Electrical Static Discharge) from your body.
• This is done by touching an object such as a doorknob or the case of the system unit. After this safety precaution is done, remove the system unit cover and locate the drive.