Articles in Category: Hard Drives (HDD)

Traditional magnetic-media spinning-platter hard drives in all shapes and sizes.

Can I Convert an External USB Hard Drive into an Internal One?

External hard drives are handy and portable, but occasionally, it might be nice to move all that storage into your PC. You probably can.

How Do I View the Contents of My Hidden D: Drive?

Partitions may be hidden for good reasons. Here's how to peek inside.

Do I Need All These Partitions?

Newer machines often come with multiple partitions. While it's tempting to remove them, there's little to be gained.

Hard Disk Failure Is Imminent! What Do I Do?

"Hard Disk Failure Is Imminent" is a message you want to take very seriously -- so seriously that hopefully, you'll have planned for it beforehand.

What Should I Look for in a Replacement Hard Drive?

It's always a good idea to look for the "best". The problem is that when it comes to hard disks, "best" is a moving target.

How Do I Fix “Invalid System Disk” Error?

An "invalid system disk" error has several possible causes. Two of them will make you hope you backed up recently.

How Does Secure Delete Work?

There's deleted, and there's deleted. Secure delete is one approach to making sure your files can't be recovered.

Should I Defragment My SSD or USB Flash Drives?

We've all been told that defragmenting a hard disk is a good thing for performance - but the same is most definitely not true for solid state drives.

Should I Run CHKDSK on My SSD?

CHKDSK and Defrag are different tools for different purposes, and have different side effects. One is OK on any drive; the other should be avoided on SSDs.

Why, or How, do Files Become Corrupt?

File corruption happens most commonly when there's a hardware issue or bad sector on your hard drive. I'll look at implications and preventative steps.

Can a Defrag Cause Data Loss?

Normally, a defrag operation will not cause data loss. Unfortunately, if there's a pre-existing problem, a defrag could bring data loss to the surface.

What’s the difference between SATA and PATA and IDE?

SATA and PATA are two different and incompatible disk drive interfaces. PATA's the old guard, but SATA's taking over. I'll look at the differences.

NAS Drive Failure: How I Dodged a Bullet

I had an impending NAS drive failure. I'll share how I got there, the mistakes I made, the things I did right, and the lessons I learned.

Why won’t some files defrag?

When you defrag files the pieces of the file are physically arranged for quicker access. But you can't defrag some files. At least, not easily.

How do I replace my system hard drive without installation media?

It sounds like your hard drive is dead. You are going to have to dig deep to get the computer going again.

Should I backup to an SD Card?

I see the appeal of slipping a little SD card into the slot of your computer for backups, but the safety of your precious data on that card has me worried!

How Should I Use My SSD and HD Together?

The thing to consider is: what do we love most about solid state drives, and conversely, what would we worry about?

Did My Boot Defragmenter Tool Actually Fix My Boot Problems?

A bad sector on your hard drive could be causing strange intermittent problems. I'll show you an easy way to find out.

If I buy the same model replacement machine, can I just move the hard disk?

Replacing a hard drive on an identical model laptop might just work, but let's make sure there are no misunderstandings here.

Why does my computer make a grinding noise when starting up?

A grinding noise and slow computer probably indicate the worse. Stop everything right now and back up!

Can I stop an “idle” computer from hitting the hard disk at all?

I'll show you how to reduce the last little bit of disk activity happening on your computer, but is that really going to help?

Why Am I Getting “Open Block” Errors from My Photo Program?

This feels like a hard-drive failure to me. There are several things you can check, but the most urgent thing to do is back up!

Will I Lose All Data When My Computer Crashes?

It's incredibly rare for a software crash to damage any drive connected to a computer. Other things, like a lightning strike, can do serious damage.

Will a power loss cause data loss on SSDs?

When the power goes out, data loss can happen. Fortunately, it's not more prevalent for Solid State Drives. No matter what kind of a drive you get, you should always protect yourself.

Does defragging too much harm my hard disk?

Defragmenting a hard drive speeds it up by moving pieces of files closer to each other. It does no harm except maybe waste your time if you do it too much.

How hard is it to change a laptop hard disk?

It 's impossible to say how hard it may be for any one person, but, let me go down a list of things that you need to think about it when it's time to replace a hard drive in a laptop.

Should I update my hard drive?

I like to follow the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But there are some considerations here where replacing the hard drive would make sense.

Why Might an Update Take a Large Amount of Space?

An update can leave a large amount of temporary files, and even the old copy of the software still on the computer. After understanding what might be left, a cleanup tool might be called for.

If I copy a file to another drive will it be fragmented the same way?

Fragmentation is about how a file is stored on a disk and is not preserved across a copy. In fact, in some cases you can defragment a hard drive using copy.

How Do I Fix Errors on My Hard Disk?

Hard disk errors come from several different sources, and as a result there are several different approaches to resolving them.

Why Won’t My External Drives Shut Down Automatically?

External drives normally shut down or go to sleep after some period of inactivity, or when the computer is turned off. If not you may have to manually turn them off as well.