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Hard Disk Drives
In a personal computer, a hard disk drive controls the positioning, reading, and writing of the hard disk, where data is stored.
4,496 Questions
Basically, these are the memory units used to represent the memory of the computing devices.
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Bit
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Byte (Contains 8 bits)
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Kilo-byte (Contains 1024 bytes)
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Mega-Byte (Contains 1024 kilo-bytes)
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Giga-Byte (Contains 1024 Mega-bytes)
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Tera-Byte (Contains 1024 Giga-bytes)
and so on....
Is the hard drive a disk drive?
Yes, a hard drive is more properly called a hard disk drive. They are not the same thing, but a hard disk drive is a type of disk drive, just like a floppy disk drive is another type, and just like a soft armor and hard armor are both types of armor. You can pretty much use "disk drive" and "drive" interchangeably in computer contexts.
The most confusing thing about hard drives is that they contain fixed (non-removable) disks. You don't SEE the disk(s), because they're locked inside, and so you could easily wonder if it's actually a disk drive.
Some people use hard drive and hard disk interchangeably, probably because they're not really sure what the difference is. Most of the time it really doesn't much matter much, but it's important to understand that there are other kinds of disk drives: floppy disk drives, tape drives, optical drives (CDs, Blu-ray discs, DVDs, etc.), magneto-optical disk drives (M-O drives) too. All of these tend to have removeable disks, which you can change. The drive stays, but the disks in it can be swapped around at will.
They're called hard disk drives because the type of physical disk that spins around inside (the disks their motors DRIVE around) are hard, like an old style vinyl record (metal or ceramic coated with a magnetic material), rather than soft like a floppy disk (plastic with a similar material).
Note that flash drives (aka USB drives, aka Pen Drives, etc., more properly called solid state drives) are another of the few drive types that have non-removable disks. They're subject to the same confusion that hard drives are subject to. In other words, a USB pen drive also has a USB disk within it. Generally they have four main parts if you open them up: the drive chip, the memory chip (disk), the USB connector itself, and the circuit board that links them all together. Might help to look inside an old one some time, just to be extra clear about how separate these things really are.
A computer's hard disk or hard drive stores information such has the operating system, programs, and files. It stores the information as small magnetic fields on the hard disc.
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating rigid (i.e. hard) platters with magnetic surfaces.
How are files organized on a hard disk?
A file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method of storing and organizing computer files and their data. Essentially, it organizes these files into a database for the storage, organization, manipulation, and retrieval by the computer's operating system.
File systems are used on data storage devices such as a hard disks or CD-ROMs to maintain the physical location of the files. Beyond this, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). It is distinguished from a directory service and registry.
The best way to repair a scratched disc is to take it into a specialist. There are also some mixtures that you can whipe on the disk to try and fix it. Most of the mixtures won't completely fix the scratch, just try to cover it.
not sure
What is permanent disk storage?
Permanent storage is basically any form of storage that retains data even when it doesn't have a power supply. A few examples:
- HDD
- CD
- DVD
Does western digital offer hard drive diagnostic software to go with their products?
Yes, the name of the software is Western Digital Data Lifeguard or DLG.
There aren't really different types of CPU, but there are some major differences between CPUS. Like Bus Sizes - we have 32 & 64 bits. Some support SSE, SSE2 and SSE3. But there are different processor architectures which you are probably talking about. There are SPARC, IA64, X86, X64, IBM Cell and more.
I believe the 3 types of CPUs being requested are:
CISC: Complex Instruction Set Computers
RISC: Reduced instruction Set Computers
MISC: Minimal Instruction Set Computers
Which disk holds the most data DVD or CD-RW or Floppy or CD-R or CD-ROM?
DVD is the largest of the 'hard media' as:
- DVD 4.7GB / 9.5Gb (dual layer)
- CD 780 MB (largest currently available)
- Floppy: 320KB / 512KB / 1.2MB (Magnetic Media)
Hard Disk's (Magnetic Media) have much larger sizes, currently the largest produced single drive is 2 TB (Terabyte: 2,000 Gigabyte - at the time of this answer). One 1 Terabyte drive equals 425.53 4.7 GB DVD's.
Please note that this does not include "Server" or "NAS" storage solutions that simply combine multiple drives into a single access point (Datacenter) - those are virtually unlimited in size (limited only by how much storage you can afford to add to the unit).
Currently the whole history of everything in all languages of the Human Race is estimated to be 50 Petabyte's; the largest (known) datacenter in the world is Teradata, Database 12 at 50 Petabytes. (1 Petabyte = 1,024 Terabytes == 1,048,676 Gigabytes or 212,765.96 DVD's).
India is starting a server farm in which there is supposed to be 1 googlebyte of storage possible which is a quintillion petabytes.
1 PB = 1024 TB
1TB = 1024 GB
1 GB = 1024 MB
1MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 Bytes
The IDE Driver software that is needed to Format, write, read, fragment and maintain the FAT for that.
How many extended partitions can be created in a hard drive?
Ther can only be one Extended Partition per hard drive
How computer stored information?
Information is stored as ons and offs, represented as 1 for on, 0 for off
This is commonly known as binary (meaning two numbers).
Binary can form numbers, by combining 8 bits (smallest unit of memory, either 1 or 0) into a byte.
it works like this:
Each bit is given a number double the previous, and when that number is "on," it is added to the total.
so in a byte, we get
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
And we can represent any number up to 255 by switching various numbers on and off
Note; for numbers beyond 255, the doubling is continued into 16 or 24 bits.
for example, to represent 13, we need
1, 4, and 8 (1+4+8=13)
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
To store text, each character is given a number. These character numbers are called ASCII (american standard code for information interchange)
For example, letter A has the number 35, so would be represented as 11000100
Hope this helps
Can you use an external hard drive to add more memory to your DVR if there is a USB port available?
DISH NETWORK AND DIRECTV are working on that option for their DVRs. DISH NETWORK's option allows the use of a standard external USB drive, but it formats in a propietary format so it cannot be moved from one DVR to another. Thank you RIAA and MPAA for that wonderful option!
DISH NETWORK currently has a series of DISHPlayers that video can be downloaded through the USB port on the DVR to the DISHPlayer personal video player
Why 500 GB hard drive space less to 465.75 GB in your computer?
There are multiple legal ways of defining bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc.
A standard kilobyte (KB) is defined as 1024 bytes. But drive manufacturers use the more 'lean' definition of kilobyte, which is a very strict 1000 bytes, as opposed to 1024 bytes.
After all, if you buy a 500Gb drive, and it actually had say 525Gb's on it, you'd be happy, not confused!
But no, they chose to go the opposite route, which, just my 'mere coincidence', happens to allow them to legally market undersized drives as judged by the standard definition of a KB.
IMO, it's all about the money, as it always is.
At this point in time, drives are essentially available in 500GB chunks. If you're uncertain as to whether one size will be enough, then you simply bump it up to the next notch and you're more than covered.
The other thing the article mentions is that formating a drive also reduces it's available storage space, so even if manufacturers used a 1024KB, you'd might still see a reduced available size because of the formating.
How to save to an external portable hard drive?
When its hooked up and operating properly, your external hard drive should show up as a drive letter under "my computer" just like your internal drive. You can save to it just as you would an internal drive.
If the drive is not showing up as i just described, it may not be partitioned and formatted. You can investigate this by going into control panel > administrative tools > computer management and clicking on disk management in the left pane. Once you've done this, the lower-right pane will show all your hard disks, scroll through and, if you find your external hard disk in there listed as "unallocated" you can partition and format it by right-clicking on it and choosing the appropriate dialog options.
NOTE: be very careful when messing around with disk management, one of the disks in that list will be your primary hard disk and erasing THAT will destroy your operating system. Be sure you are formatting the right disk.
What is the difference between a floppy disk and a floppy drive?
In some ways, they are kind-of the same. But there are significant differences. Consider that data organization on a computer has been fashioned after what you might find in an office:
An office may have a bunch of related papers. In a computer file system, those papers would be individually identified as files.
The papers are stored in a folder. On a computer, files are stored in a folder, or, directory.
The office folder is stored, along with other related folders, in a drawer of a filing cabinet. In a computer, a drive is analogous to the drawer of the office filing cabinet. The drive, usually identified by a unique letter of the English alphabet, is a volume, or partition. Files and folders in the "folder" of the drive itself are said to be in the root folder.
The office filing cabinet may have multiple drawers. Together, the drawers form a filing cabinet. In a computer, a drive may be one of several volumes (partitions) available on a physical disk. So, the disk itself may be thought of as the filing cabinet.
A drive and a folder on a computer have these things in common:
- Both can store other folders within.
- Both can store files within.
- Both can only be one type of file system.
- Both can have a recorded date of creation.
A drive and a computer folder have these differences:
- The drive is the top-level entity of a disk volume. A folder always has a parent folder, but a drive does not.
- Drives are usually identified by a single letter of the English alphabet. A folder can have most any name, according to the conventions of the file system.
- Folders can have file attributes (like Read-Only, Hidden, Modified Date, etc.) that a drive itself cannot have.
- A drive can have a volume label that identifies the volume. The volume label does not need to be unique. Some drives can also have additional properties, like a quasi-original serial number.
- A drive's letter must be unique in the system to which it's attached (mounted). A folder must have a unique name in the folder it's in, but there can be any number of identically-named folders in other folders.
- A folder (or file) cannot exist without a drive, but the reverse is not true.
- As a drive represents a complete volume (partition), the file system's organization of data relies on it. The entire structure of all files and folders on a drive is stored internally as a part of the drive's data. Formatting a drive initializes this data structure, destroying it if it already exists. You cannot format a folder.
- The "folder" representing a drive is called the root folder (of the drive). No regular folder can be addressed as such. The root folder cannot be deleted, but all of the files and folders in the root folder can be deleted.
- A drive can be released from the system it's attached to, which is called dismounting it. A folder cannot be dismounted, only deleted.
- Some file systems allow mounting a drive as a sub-folder of another drive. In this case, the mounted drive's root folder logically becomes the sub-folder of the other drive. But in reality, the two volumes remain physically separate. One of the volumes can be destroyed or corrupted without affecting the other. The volume that's mounted can still be addressed separately by a unique drive letter.
- A host system may require a special device driver in order to access a drive. A folder is a figment of the drive's file system, and requires no drivers.
Memory modules are used for adding RAM to a computer motherboard. As a standard computer industry practice the motherboard manufacturers do not add RAM to motherboards but provide slots (empty sockets) to which memory modules can be added as per computer configuration needs of the end user. Semiconductor RAM which is manufactured as standard chips is assembled on printed circuit boards as memory modules of different capacities (e.g 512MB , 1GB or 2GB). Examples include SIMM, DIMM, SODIMM. These module printed circuit board size, shape and signals are standard as defined for various memory types e.g. 200pin laptop DDR2 SODIMM is a common laptop memory type these days. Since there are standard modules for all type of computers, for a specific computer type you can just buy memory module and add RAM to the computer.
To write-protect (stop deletion, overwriting, or adding to) a 3 1/4" floppy disk, slide the tiny plastic tab at the back of the disk (opposite the shutter), so that it is open.
To protect a disk from damage, keep it in a dry, temperature-controlled environment free of dust and smoke. Avoid any contact with strong magnetic field (sudh as on top of stereo speakers).
Does an external hard drive increase disc space?
You can use compression, but it can also affect the performance of the disk.
What error messages can indicate that BIOS could not find a hard drive?
BIOS will notify that it couldn't locate a bootable drive. But you can get other related messages as well.
