Hard Disk Drive Myths Debunked!

Discussion in 'Reviews & Articles' started by Adrian Wong, Mar 16, 2004.

  1. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Oh good! Someone who actually tried it and worked. Can you tell us about your own circumstances and how it worked?
     
  2. mikegas

    mikegas Newbie

    I am not sure what freezing would heal. Maybe need to find out what kind of defect is it. Hard defect such as scratches, head degration, an even pcb burned .. sure is non recoverable in any means.
     
  3. zy

    zy zynine.com Staff Member

    no idea what freezing would do ... most likely slow down the movement of some components or something.

    freezing it is like letting it cool down.

    sometimes maybe heat causes it to have problem in the first place :think:
     
  4. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    FORMATTING

    Formatting may damage hard disks after all(I think so). 5 years before I had a 80 GB Samsung harddisk which I used to format after every 20 days and it was damaged after 3 years only with bad sectors....
    Now I am having a 160 gb Baracuda hard disk . Due to some reasons I had to format it over 20 times within 16 hours . And now I think the hard disk is working slower than it did before(data transfer).A FRIEND OF MINE TOLD ME THAT IT MIGHT HAVE GONE SLOWER DUE TO EXCESS FORMATTING WHICH HAD DAMAGED IT TO SOME EXTENT

    By the way can anybody tell that what are the possible causes of bad sectors formation on hard disks
     
  5. mikegas

    mikegas Newbie

    Formatting on Windows/DOS is just writing zeros to drive. Full format would write the whole drive zero. Quick format would just writing zero in the beginning of sectors. Extensive formatting would only be equivalent to normal usage wear and tear of the drive..
     
  6. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Yeah, formatting will not cause the hard drive to develop bad sectors. Neither will it slow down your hard drive.
     
  7. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    And what are the possible causes of bad sector formation?
     
  8. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Bad sector can appear at anytime. I have a perfect HDD, and just one fine day I found out that I couldn't delete a file, after running a scan, bad sector appeared, and formatting it didn't fix the problem. So time for a new drive. :mrgreen:
     
  9. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    I have another question. !!
    If my computer gets restarted repeatedly for about 20 or 25 times at an interval of one or two seconds due to abnormal frequency of power failure ,then will it affect any of my computer's parts like motherboard ,hard disk, central processor ,ram etc....etc.....????
     
  10. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    PSU might die due to power spike. A good PSU should handle those situation, or get a UPS. It may only corrupt the HDD data, but will not kill the HDD.

    It also happened to me once, PSU killed my whole system.
     
  11. Unixlord

    Unixlord Newbie

    That's happened to me too. Bad cheap PSU nuked an entire athlonxp system.
     
  12. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    Actually I had an ups, but it could not serve backup because of repeated powercuts and low voltage within an interval of 1 or 2 seconds about over 20 times. So , will it affect my pc components( excluding psu) ??/

    How does psu kill the whole system?? And what do you mean by the whole system? Does it include ram, motherboard,processor,hard disk?? And how can I understand that which psu is good and which one is not?
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2008
  13. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    What do you mean your UPS cannot serve backups?

    Your PSU is a AC to DC converter. Of course if your PSU is affected, everything else will be.

    Erm, imagine the PSU is supplying 12V for 12V line, but suddenly it decides to supply 24V, that will kill most devices immediately.

    What PSU is good? I usually spend USD100 on a good PSU.
     
  14. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    I actually wanted to ask that can the repeated power cuts affect the psu in such a way that the psu corrupts my whole system ,i.e. should I get a new psu after this event???
    What do you recommend? I am asking these since I am very inexperienced!!!!
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2008
  15. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Like I said before, get a proper UPS.
     
  16. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    I already got a new ups,but still should i change my psu for safety purpose ???
     
  17. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    What PSU are you using now?
     
  18. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    My psu was given free with my 'Zebronics Nagasaki' cabinet box. Together they cost Rs.1800.00
     
  19. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    You are staying in India? Now wonder you suffer so many power cuts. Don't you have those inverter-type of UPSes that use a lorry battery to run PCs for 2-3 hours?

    Never heard of that brand before. Rs 1800 should be about RM 180 or USD 53. That's a very "low-cost" PSU.
     
  20. Keiichi

    Keiichi Newbie

    Yes ,I am staying in india....No i don't have those inverter-type of UPSes that use a lorry battery to run PCs for 2-3 hours.
    Ok,and if my computer psu ever fails to work properly, i.e. if it supplies 24V instead of 12V , how can i understand that before it nukes up my entire system ????
     

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