Formatting Hard Drive Myths part 5

April 21st, 2008

It is true that formatting will eliminate the bad sectors and will be replace with good sector on the spare section that part of every hard disk. But the performance will suffer because the heads will seek on the spare section in replacements of bad sectors. Bad sectors are signs of bad hard disk. Basically, it means that there something wrong with the hard disk. Bad sectors create debris on the platter and can cause to damage the hard drive.

Additionally, spare sectors are limited on any hard drive. Then once the hard disk runs out of spare sectors, formatting can not replace those bad sectors.

Formatting Hard Drive Myths part 4

April 20th, 2008

There is a myth that bad sectors can be repaired once it was reformatted. A bad sector is an area where the hard disk cannot be written nor read properly. It may due to program-related problems that result in a logical bad sector. Bad sectors that are software related can be restores by formatting using any logical repair utility.

But in case the problem is due to eroded media or the hardware is directly damaged. Such physical bad sectors can no longer be repaired using any logical repair utility and formatting it will not restore them. Formatting them, however, can replace those bad sectors with spare sectors.

Hard Drive Myths part 3

April 16th, 2008

The truth is current design of hard disk’s head actuators are not power-driven by any motor. Previous design of the head actuators are actually powered by a stepper motor. But currently head actuators use the voice coil instrument that uses electromagnetic power to stir the heads. In short, head actuators don’t have a motor to fail and not powered by any mechanical motor.

In addition, take note that head actuators’ automatically when there are power cuts meaning it is not an active process. Head actuator uses spring to park itself. The spring retracts the actuators when the power is cut while it moved against the spring tension when active.

Hard Drive Myths part 2

April 12th, 2008

Bad sectors of the hard disk will not cause by insufficient power of power cuts. The head actuators automatically park the heads on every occasion there is power cuts so that the platters won’t crashed to head actuators. There is no way that power cuts will cause your hard disk bad sectors but having a bad power supply can fail your hard drive because it will surge the circuit board of it and may fry the motor.

A cheap power supplies do not kill hard drive even slowly killing it. That is a myth. Like any other power supply, when it send and surge the hard disk the disk will be instantly kill.

Hard Drive Myths part 1

April 10th, 2008

One sign of the hard disk’s calibration process is the spin-up and spin –down events. The hard disk recalibrates itself to balance the changes in temperature which is also adjusting the position of data on the platter surface and when the hard disk can not scan the data properly. As a result, if the hard disk recalibrates a lot it might be a symptom of a failing hard disk.

However, take note that there is hard disk that programmed to saves power. In order to saves power the hard disk spin down and when there’s work to be done that’s the time to spin-up again.

Formatting Hard Drive Myths part 3

April 8th, 2008

Anytime bad sectors of the hard drive will suddenly appear whether you just plain using the hard drive or formatting it. The number of bad sectors is definitely will increase as the time goes by.

This myth has some truth in it though. After formatting bad sectors are probably noticeable. This happen because in formatting in formatting the hard drive utility looks for the “new”You will probably notice more bad sectors after formatting. Consequently bad sectors are already there and what happen was revealing them.

So, in a failing hard disk the number of the bad sectors will not increase when you format it. Bad sectors are being revealed in doing so.

Deframenting Hard Drive Myths part 1

April 6th, 2008

Stressing the needle because of defragmenting has some truth in it, though gone astray. Defragmenting the hard disk might require a lot of searching and looking as the hard drive reorganizes its data in a contiguous style. Defragmenting lets the read-and-write heads to scan huge amounts of data without searching over the platters.

On the other hand, right after defragmentation, the hard disk is no longer required to search for all the platters for your data. In this way it lowers the amount of head actuator actions as well as intensely increases the performance of the hard drive. For that reason and technically, defragmenting the hard drive will reduce the workload of the head actuator.

Formtting Hard Drive Myths part 2

April 4th, 2008

Formatting the hard drive will not deposit any layer of “any material” on the platter. The heads of the hard disk do not touch the platter so it is impossible for them leave anything on the surface of the platter.

Additionally, the hard disk is constructed in a sealed environment inside a clean room conditions. There is very a tiny little amount of dust inside the hard disk. Since there is dust formatting doesn’t really put anything on the platter. Platters are continuously spinning, done in a serial order, anything would not be able to itself on the platter to create bad sector.