Thursday 16 July 2009

About the Hard drive


In Computer world, ''Media'' means a storage where you can store any type of data. The data can be movie, photos, softwares, anything. Media can mean one of Hard drive, USB disk, Floppy, CD, DVD, DVD ROM.

Hard drive is currently, the largest media at Home PC where you can store all data including the main OS.

All we see on the screen is the (human readable) translated version of what's going on within the Hard drive and the other components.

I am not that familiar with the electrical reactions going on within the alloy of the chip so I will not describe further.


Virus and malwares are also stored in the hard drive if you don't watch out. All Drivers are also stored to let the other components function properly.

So we can say that the ultimate method of eliminating all the viruses and unwanted softwares is to format the disk.

Hard drive can be the third most important component in the system.

Hard drive include a bunch of CD or DVD sort of medias (well not exactly but looks like..) sandwiched all together if you open the case. Each one of the disk has high capacity space. All data are written to these disks together at one go.

Disks and medias are usually written by either (the reader needle) scratch method, or magnetic method or simply both.

Cassette tapes are written by sprinkling flour like magnet to write the '' - '' and '' + '' on the tape.
Then cassette player reads this negative signs to emit the sound. So you'd better NOT touch the sensitive area if you do not want to lose any sound quality.

The same goes to the hard drive. If you change the negative and positive signs on the disk by say attaching to a magnet for example, you will lose ALL data in the disk.

It is very important that you put back your media to where it was after you have used it. For example, PS2 disk in the container after you've played and not leave it behind on the floor.

Modern Hard drives reads and write fast. It will develop more and more and soon that we will not need the RAM in the future.

But, the paper can live much longer than the machine. It is better not to put your very very very very important files in your Disk. Afterall, it is a machine and nobody knows when it will break.

The typical method of loosing data in the Hard disk is the heat.
If you turn on you PC for all day everyday, the hard disk will bend slightly because of the heat.

When that happenes, the system gets unstable. Sometimes, it will start and sometimes it doesn't and leave the black screen in front you or you can't access to certain files.