Why Wipe Free Disk Space?

By Sam Miller

Computers have found very many applications in today's world, in almost every field of human activity. Offices, schools, libraries, and other organizations that need to keep track of and organize huge masses of information have found that computers perform this task admirably. Scientists and engineers have been able to leverage the massive computing power now available to help solve problems once thought unsolvable, and to develop new technologies through simulation. Writers, visual artists, and even musical composers have also found that computers can provide new and exciting ways for them to practice their respective crafts.
Because of this, it has also become quite important to look at the different ways of storing digital data. Digital data here refers to that information stored in methods that make it accessible to computers, such as on hard disks or compact discs (CD's). Apart from increasing the amount of data that could be stored on a particular digital storage device, discussions of data security have also arisen.
Computers have been made to handle confidential information, which is meant to be protected from unauthorized access. Password protection is now an option with most programs that work with digital files, and so is of course keeping the computers in question physically secure. Sometimes, however, it may become necessary to delete certain files in such a manner as to leave no traces on the medium.
This is where the disk wiping or file shredding operation comes in. These processes are distinguished from ordinary deletion by the fact that they are more permanent. The data disposed of using either of these two processes are much more difficult to recover than data merely deleted. This is so because when a file is deleted, it is actually not removed from the hard disk. Instead, what happens is just that it is marked "deleted", and the space it occupies on the disk surface is marked "available".
In other words, the file information remains on the hard disk, available for curious eyes to recover and view. In the file shredding operation, the area on the hard disk where the file is stored is actually overwritten with random data. This helps to mask any traces that the file has left on the hard disk, and makes recovering the shredded file's information virtually impossible.
A disk wipe is simply the same operation, but performed over the entire area of the hard disk, to more or less permanently delete all data on the disk.
Some programs have the function of wiping free disk space. This may seem useless, at first encounter, but it actually does have its own uses. Some programs such as word processors or spreadsheets may create temporary files that hold information. Also, previously deleted files that have not yet been wiped are still on the disk, available for recovery. By wiping the free disk space, these temporary files are removed, and the previously deleted files become gone for good. Wiping free disk space would be a useful habit to form, to help guard against the unintentional recovery of deleted data, thought lost.

If you are interested in wipe free disk space, check this web-site to learn more about wiping hard disk.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller

Portable Hard Disks

By James Walsh

Well, the situation is not the same any more. Old hard disks can be used for a long time, as external drives. In fact, if you do not have an external hard drive, we strongly suggest you buy one. They are ideal data storage devices. Such an apparatus is required, for the information contained on our internal hard drives are not safe. Our home pc is extensively used (by all the family members) and this turns the data contained in the system susceptible to damage. Moreover, our computers also face the regular onslaught of exterior threats.

Many external hard drives are available in the market. Purchase those offered by reputed companies while paying close attention to the price factor. External hard disks are more expensive than the internal ones.

Working of Portable Hard Disks and the Advantages They Offer

A portable hard disk lies outside the computer encased in its casing. It is connected to the system through a high speed interface cable. Data passes to and fro the external disk, via this cable. If necessary, you can turn off the disk while working on the internet.

Using an external hard disk is replete with plenty of advantages. You can transfer all the important information pertaining to financial transactions, health records, etc to this device. The portability of the media offers you the added advantage of an off-site placement.

External hard disks are available with data storage capacities ranging around 80 GB to 400 GB. These plug-in-and-play devices also offer high data transfer rates. You can easily transfer data between computers or between your desktop and laptop. Such a feature is especially advantageous to telecommuters.

Hard Disks as Data Storage Devices

These advantages also make portable hard disks ideal data storage devices. You can use them conveniently, place them in a safe location and their huge data storage capacity brings down the cost of per bit of information stored. These disks can be used when the need arises and you need not fear that they might become redundant in the future.

However, this media supports a limited amount of write erase cycles. You also have to handle them with great care. They have to be kept well-packed in a padded case. They are prone to easy damage, if dropped. Majority of the problems relating to hard drives occur due to external damages. Damage to the hard disk inevitably leads to data loss jeopardising the security of your important data. If you face such a situation, you can recover the lost data using the data recovery software or handing over the drive to data recovery experts. Your external hard drive and the internal hard drive are not different. The data recovery process works similarly on either.

Data Recovery from Portable Hard Disk

The only difference between these two disks is that the portable hard disk is encased in a smaller casing and it features at least one data interface. As they are usually used as data storage devices, they contain a (software or hard ware) feature that automates backup. Apart form these few differences, both the disks are the same.

If you happen to lose important files from the external hard drive, you can retrieve it using the ‘Do it yourself’ (DIY) data recovery software. Download the software from the internet. Connect the external hard drive to the computer and run the software. A list of lost files and folders will be presented for your preview. You can select the file you require and save it.

If you have lost access to your files due to a physical damage of the drive, power off the computer and remove the drive. Hand over the hard disk to data recovery service providers. They can recover the lost data for you, by working on the drive in a clean room.

Portable hard disks get damaged only when dropped. Otherwise these are hardy devices. They can withstand scratches and mishandling better in comparison to other backup storage devices. These are ideal for information storage for their limitations are few and strengths many.

About the author:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Hard Disk Drives and Their Types

By James Walsh

The latter are removable media that are tailor-made for transporting data from one machine to another. Hard drives on the other hand are the primary storage used by the processor to access and process data.

Hard drives store data on platters which have a magnetic surface. A read-and-write head hovering just a sub-micron height above the platters accesses this data. The platters are spun at a very fast speed by a spindle motor. The faster the platters spin, the quicker the data can be accessed by the operating system. Currently, the commonly available hard disks have a RPM (revolution per minute) of 5,400 and 7,200, though some manufacturers have launched drives of even 15,000 RPM.

Hard disks offer a phenomenal data storage capacity. Today’s desktop drives have capacities available in sizes of 80 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB and 240 GB. There are models with a capacity of 500 GB too. Hard drive manufacturer Seagate recently launched a hard disk with a staggering capacity of one terabyte.

Types of Hard Drives

There are many types of hard drives available in the market. These mainly differ in their interfaces. While buying a hard drive, you should get an idea about these interfaces and which one would fit your need.

IDE / EIDE (ATA) Drives
One of the prominent and very widely used hard drive interfaces is IDE or EIDE that stands for Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics. It is quite easy to install and its data transfer speed is quite fast. Drives with EIDE interface are also called ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) drives and connect to the motherboard with a wide ribbon cable. IDE drives are “parallel” drives, that is, they transfer data in many streams simultaneously to the processor. It is an old technology though and may disappear in a few years from now. SATA drives today look like the future.

SATA Drives
The acronym stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. This is a new technology that makes hard drives extremely fast. The cable that connects to the motherboard is also quite thin compared to an ATA drive, thus decongesting the insides of the computer and leaving more room for airflow. These drives are “serial” drives because the SATA interface, as the name suggests, transfers data bit by bit at a time to the processor.

However, it does this so fast that its speed still comes out to be very high compared to IDE drives. If you have a choice and your mother-board can support them, always go for SATA hard drives, even if they are a bit more expensive than IDE drives. The extra money is worth it because of the high speed that the former offers. With SATA drives, the computer boots up quickly and software programmes also load in a less amount of time. This increases to your pleasure of using the machine.

SCSI Drives
These are the most expensive hard disks in the market today, coming for about three times the cost of ATA or SATA drives. They are very fast, in fact much faster than the latter two drives. However, SCSI drives are quite complex to set up on the computer as one has to tinker with the jumper settings. These drives are not very popular with ordinary desktop users (who are quite content with the performance of the SATA drives) but are used by high-end machines like Web servers.

Currently, ATA drives are the most popular in the desktop market, followed by SATA drives. SCSI drives come last for high-performance applications.

There are many companies today making hard drives all over the world. The most common brand names include IBM (now sold to Hitachi), Hitachi, Seagate, Fujitsu, Maxtor and Western Digital. Fujitsu and Seagate are well-known for making high-speed SCSI drives.

Hard disks are very delicate machines. They have many moving parts inside. The platters spin at a rate of 125 times a second. The read / write head is suspended less than a hair’s breadth above the spinning platters accessing the data. Obviously much can go wrong with this arrangement, though manufacturers try to make their hard drives as reliable as possible.

The biggest danger is a hard-disk crash. This occurs when the read / write head becomes unhinged and slams on the surface of the platters where it gets stuck. When you switch on the computer, it does not boot up. Instead, you hear a screeching noise from the disk. This means that the head is scratching the data-recording surface of the platters and destroying data permanently. You should immediately switch off the computer and call data recovery experts.

About the author:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and Computer Forensics see http://www.fieldsassociates.co.uk
Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

‘Hard Disk Crash’ – What Does it Really Mean?

By James Walsh

Consumers are increasingly demanding hard drives with better performance and data storage abilities. While technology advancements have indeed made hard drives perform better, they have also made the hard drive more complex. Some of the miniature hard drives have extremely delicate internal components which function with extremely complicated mechanism. If this mechanism is even slightly disrupted, the hard disk can crash.

What is a Hard Disk Crash?

When a hard disk stops performing normally due to a malfunction, it results in a hard disk crash. A hard disk crash can make the data inaccessible to the user. Hard disks crashes can be severe or moderate. Since hard drives consist of extremely delicate internal components including complicated circuit boards, the problems related to hard disk crash mostly need to rectified using professional data recovery services.

You will know that your hard disk has crashed when you hear a clicking sound from the hard disk or if you receive an error message saying that the hard disk is undetectable. There are also times when your computer screen will suddenly turn blank.

How can a Hard Disk Crash?

Much as we would like to appreciate and think of a hard disk as an invincible device, a hard disk is prone to damage like any other electronic device. Hard disks can fail anytime during the normal course of computer usage.

Whereas some users experience a hard disk failure without doing anything out of ordinary, there are others who like to ask for trouble. Hard disks can crash very easily when they are subjected to a sharp impact. Therefore, if you have been careless enough to drop your laptop, prepare yourself to bear the brunt of the pain you may have caused your hard drive in the process.
Hard disks can also crash when exposed to heat, humid temperature, water, or high magnetic waves. We will discuss some of the most common reason for a hard disk crash in our following section.

Electronic Failure

An electronic failure can cause the hard disk to fail because problems arise in the controller board of the hard disk. The main culprits of electronic failures are power spikes or surges. These power fluctuations create problems in the controller board, which subsequently makes the hard disk undetectable to the BIOS. Electronic failures usually do not result in severe data loss problems.

Firmware Corruption

There is a software code that is embedded in the physical hard drive. This code is called a Firmware. Firmware is an integral part of the hard drive because it controls the various activities such as configuration and interaction between the components of the hard drive and the system power on/off function.

The hard disk loads the data from the firmware into the RAM at the time of the system start-up. This allows the hard drive to report its status. If the hard drive has been damaged, it will report a status saying that the hard drive is undetectable. Experts believe that a firmware corruption may not directly lead to data loss. Therefore, it would best if users try to avoid accessing their data to avoid any complications. Once the firmware problem has been resolved, the data can be accessed from the hard drive.

Mechanical Failure

A hard disk is most at risk due to this type of failure. Mechanical failures are more serious in nature than electronic failures or firmware corruption. Therefore, the chances of you losing your data are much higher when your hard disk encounters a mechanical failure. A motor problem or a head crash may cause a mechanical failure. A head crash is more severe in nature because it can damage the hard disk along with the read-write heads of the hard disk.

Logical Errors

When a hard disk crashes due to logical errors, the nature of the problem is usually not very severe. The hard drive encounters no physical problem due to a logical error. Therefore, some logical problems can be easily resolved using data recovery software.


Protect Yourself from Hard Disk Failures

Most people fail to understand the importance of creating timely data backups. Hard disks can fail anywhere and at anytime. Therefore, it is imperative that you create continuous and regular backups of your valuable data. This way, even if the hard disk fails, your data will remain intact. It is important to choose a backup plan that best suits your requirement.


About the author:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

How To Protect Your Hard Disk Drive Against Electrostatic Shock

by Ali Jamalan

If you’ve ever walked across a thick carpet and felt a shock after
touching a grounded object (or shocked a friend on purpose) you know
about the general effects of static electricity. But do you know how it
works, or how damaging it can be to computer components? Although it
may seem a bit silly and unimportant, “static shock” or Electrostatic
Discharge (ESD) can cause significant damage to your hard drive.
Comparable to a lighting bolt damaging a tree, ESD can act like a bomb
exploding in your drive, blowing apart parts of the circuit board. But
don’t worry – if you follow a few simple steps you can ensure you’re
well protected and avoid letting a minor thing like ESD cause major
problems.

WHAT IS ESD?
ESD or "static shock" is a portion of an imbalanced high voltage field
on a non-conductive surface (e.g. your hand, the carpet, a screwdriver)
that has just moved to a conductive surface in a rapid, uncontrolled
fashion. "Static electricity" is the same portion of an imbalanced high
voltage field on a nonconductive surface, but it has not yet reached
the point of releasing it's electrons to equalize the imbalance between
a conductor with a greater positive charge than itself. This imbalanced
high voltage field will not "discharge" until conditions are right,
that is until the number of electrons the charge grabs from around its
location builds to a point in which no more electrons can be sustained.
When a conductive surface of some type gets within 'jumping" distance,
the process of equalising the electrical field is experienced.

Imbalanced high voltage fields are everywhere, constantly flowing over
and around us, and people feel them because we are good conductors. The
shock you sometimes get when touching a door knob after shuffling
across the carpet is made in the same way a thunderstorm makes a
lightning bolt.

Some Examples of Voltage:

• 3,000 volts - the average human can't feel voltage below this
threshold.
• 8,000 volts - yawning and stretching with clothes on.
• 15-20,000 volts - shoving a plastic-coated box across the carpet with
foot.
• 18,000 volts - getting up from a foam cushion on a nylon-covered
couch.
• 35,000 volts - walking across a typical carpet.5

WHAT CAN ESD DO?
While ESD won’t kill you, it can definitely kill your computer
components. While it takes an electrostatic discharge of 3,000 volts
for you to feel a shock, much smaller charges, well below the threshold
of human sensation, can and often do damage semiconductor devices. Many
of the more sophisticated electronic components can be damaged by
charges as low as 10 volts.

ESD damage occurs when a charge on a hand or tool finds a path of
lesser resistance from itself to a drive. If the energy of that charge
is larger than the amount of energy the drive can safely dissipate,
damage may occur.

Especially sensitive to ESD are integrated circuits: processors,
memory, cache chips and expansion cards. This damage can be immediate,
resulting in melting, junction breakdown or oxidation. Even scarier,
you could electrocute your drive and never even know it – the effects
of ESD are difficult to trace and often do not affect the drive until
several days to several months after the ESD occurrence.

PREVENTION TIPS
Luckily, a few simple steps can help you avoid ESD damage and promote
long life for your disk drive.

• Keep your drive in an ESD bag until you handle it – an ESD bag is
specially designed to prevent ESD.

• Always wear an ESD wrist strap grounded to an unpainted surface on
the chassis of your computer.

• If a wrist strap is unavailable, touch an unpainted surface on the
chassis of your computer before handling your drive.

• Only touch the connector pins on your drive with the proper cabling
ends or jumpers. Never use a bare finger or non-insulated tool.

• Protect your drive from sources of high voltage power such as fans or
vacuum cleaners.

• Never try to plug a power or data cable into a drive unless power to
the box is completely off.

Finally, by controlling the temperature, you can also help limit ESD.
By increasing the relative humidity of the room where the computer is
located, you can greatly reduce build-up of ESD. Static builds up more
readily in dry environments than in moist ones; this is why you get
zapped much more often in the winter time in northern climates than in
summer.

So what happens if by some freak accident your hard drive experiences
ESD and your data is lost? Don’t panic, because your best solution is
only a phone call away. Many ‘Data Recovery’ companies have experience
dealing with hard drives damaged by ESD and will apply the most
advanced technology in the industry to perform data recovery.
Contacting these immediately upon discovering ESD damage is the best
option to keep you and your clients working and productive.

Knowing that ESD exists is the first step in prevention. By following
ESD handling procedures and understanding the dynamics behind “static
electricity,” you can ensure that working with a hard drive is never a
shocking experience.

Data Recovery Console - UK's Cheapest Data Recovery Service for all
hard disk drives (IDE/SATA, diskettes, memory sticks and flash cards.
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Hard drive recovery not always possible

By Andrew Watson

In this era where computer rules, data plays the most important role in our life. So the fear of data loss and the damage we might occur is most devastating. To over from such losses data recovery software has evolved which salvage our lost data. Either the data lost occur due to software malfunction, viruses, file/directory deletion or even sabotage. But these data recovery software are only helpful from logical crash recovery.

The cause of data getting corrupt are varied, this may be of the following reasons

• Improper shut down of computer system.
• Due to power surge computer resets of it own, this freezes the computer making the shutdown impossible leading to data loss

This type of failure can be recovered by using data recovery software.

• Due to catastrophic hard drive failure where operating system is unable to recognize the hard drive
• Head getting crash
• Due to air pollution inside the drive (This generally occur while not keeping the system in the clean environment)

Failure from such physical crash can recover by using data recovery service. This requires Clean Room Facility where data recovery experts know how to recover data from it.

• Hard drive failure due to bad sector also. When certain sector of the hard drives becomes unreadable its content are copied to spare sector before it becomes completely damaged. Once the sector is not readable at all so data recovery from such bad sector is not possible

Although data recovery services are able to recover from the most critical situation but sometimes it also fails. So there is no scope left to recover the lost and damaged data from such failures. Sometimes data recovery service is as simple as downloading a free data recovery software, other times its more complex where disk imaging technique is required

So the best way to avoid such situation where even data recovery service is not possible is to keep regular back up. To stop the drive getting corrupt runs disk defragmenter every three month to keep it in good condition. While moving from the system from one place to another always pack the hard drive in original packing material so that drive doesn’t get damage.

About the author:
Andrew Watson a student of Mass Communication doing research on data recovery software. He is also a freelancer for http://www.stellarinfo.com

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Data recovery on failed hard disk

By Andrew Watson

Hard disk is a permanent storage device for storing electronic data on a magnetic surface. Hard disk was invented by Reynold Johnson which was capable of storing five million characters. Now-a-days hard disk capacity has increased tremendously with storage capacity of 1 Terabytes. As storage capacity has increased so chances of losing such a huge amount of data form the hard disk.

Hard disk failure can when there is a break down of the hard drive (termed as physical failure of the hard disk) and data stored on the disk cannot be accessed. There are various kind of failure which our hard disk suffer the most common is “Head Crash”. Head of the drive is an important component which is used to read and write the information from the hard disk. Head just moves over platter only at a distance of micrometer. Any sort of collision results in severe data loss. If we try to do the recovery by our own can result in further damage of the data.

There are numerous factors which causes hard disk failure. The most common are power
surges, voltage fluctuations, electronic malfunction, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosion, exposure to high magnetic waves, sharp impact, high temperature
exposure etc. Hard disk failure is increasing higher, as to increase the speed or read/write operation we are rotating the hard drive with great speed. If any thing goes wrong with the normal operation of hard disk causes severe damage.

There are several techniques used by data recovery experts to recover the data from the failed hard disk. It is done by moving the hard disk to working system. Hard disk is open to replace the parts like head of the drive, arm and chips and sometimes change of platter is also done to make it working such that data recovery can be done on failed hard disk.
Hard disk recovery requires clean and dust free environment such as Class 100 Clean Room

Apart from the physical failure of the drive, if our hard disk has suffered a logical crash then in this case data recovery software is helpful. Logical crash can be termed as inability to access the data from hard drive or data lost due to accidental format, viruses or software malfunction or even sabotage.

In case of recovery of data from severely damaged hard disk you should consult data Recovery Company for saving your important data which is trapped inside the failed hard disk.

About the author:
Andrew Watson a student of Mass Communication doing research on data recovery software. He is also a freelancer for http://www.stellarinfo.com

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Understanding our Hard Drive

By Andrew Watson

One single hard drive store can store millions & millions of megabytes of data. In fact today’s computer hard drive is capable of storing Terabytes of data. Nature of hard drive has changed astronomically what we used in beginning. Changes have occurred in the size of the hard, nature, capacity and weight. Have we ever though how these hard drive works. We have never given the importance of its working just we know to store our valuable data and retrieving it when needed. So let’s understand the basic component of the hard drive.

The hard drive which we use consists of seven basic elements, the enclosure, spindle, platter, motor, actuator arm, and interface and logic board. Enclosure is nothing but a simple case of the hard drive which holds the other five components inside it. Logic board is attached on the back side of the hard drive.

Logic Board

As we have said logic board is attached to the underside of the hard drive is an important piece which handles important elements. Logic board can be termed as a brain of the hard dive as it gives the instruction manual for computer attempting to access the hard drive. It give the computer an idea how big size of the hard dive, what cables are connected to the hard drive & how to access the drive in different operating system. If the logic board goes dead then our computer will never be able to detect our hard drive.

Spindle Motor

Now if we look into enclosure of the hard drive then the most basic thing is spindle motor. Spindle motor is one which rotates the platters or the disk where our data is stored. The spindle motor is connected to the spindle. The spindle moves at a speed of about 150 rotations in one second. And the distance between the spindle and platter is about 1 micro millimeter. Even if any dust particles comes in between them then spindle gets damaged.

Hard drive Platters

Platter is thin disk of glass or aluminum coated with an ultra-thin layer of a cobalt alloy, which is naturally magnetic. Data is written on the sector which outward from spindle called track. Sectors are organized into concentric ring. Collection of sector form clusters which are grouped together by the file system. Without clustering disk performance would be very slow due to the file system's inability to access data quickly.

These entire components are vital and any damaged to these parts can result in loss of our valuable data. So it is advisable to always monitor the hard drive such as Temperature, Head Flying Height, and Spin-Up Time etc. If there any clicking or unwinding sound is heard then immediately stop using the drive and to consult data recovery experts before we loose any data.


About the author:
Andrew Watson a student of Mass Communication doing research on data recovery software. He is also a freelancer for http://www.stellarinfo.com

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com