How To Maximize Hard Drive Life

jmke · 9th February 2006, 12:41

If I asked you the question: which part of your computer is the most fragile, what would you say? What if I asked: which part is most important to you? Often, the answer to both of these questions is your Hard Drive. We'll show you how to maximize its life.

jmke · 9th February 2006, 12:51

1) windows own defrag tool is no good, and only reduces defragmentation for a very small portion
2) fragmentation does not reduce your Hard Drive life. they say that with a heavy fragmentated drive the HDD heads need to work harder. But if you defrag your hard drive each day, won't that cause more work for those same heads also? indeed. If a defrag would prolong the HDD's life, don't you think large companies who sell defrag software would advertise this aspect? http://www.diskeepereurope.com/en/02...l/desktops.htm
3) a power surge "should be" handled by a PSU. If you have a decent power supply with good safety features, then no damage will occur when power surges. of course there are exceptions, and having an extra protection in the form of an UPS or surge protector can do no harm. But this damage is not limited to hard drives. If a surge is powerful enough to pass through your PSU and kill your HDD, then others parts inside your PC will be affected also.
4) backup backup backup backup backup backup backup backup backup *1000

9th February 2006, 15:44

diskeeper is also not the best software

tough, the only one I know that is available free for defrags

jmke · 9th February 2006, 16:23

it was an example

O&O defrag is quite good also, Diskeeper is much better than Windows's default offering.

9th February 2006, 16:53

Well since this thread is about harddrives, 1 of my harddrives is slow and puts a big load on my cpu when copeing files.
I had some problems of games crashing that are installed on the drive.
I thougt this was a memory problem.
The other day i was copieng movies from a friends external drive.
The problematic drive (western digital 200gb) took 4 minutes to copy a 700mb movie while my maxtor 200gb did the job in about 30sec

.
Is this fixable or should i be looking for a new hdd?

Greets,
Sharp.

jmke · 9th February 2006, 17:01

back up all the data on that drive; then do a low level format. this might bring it back to life.

I've had a maxtor drive which showed similar issues; a low level format fixed it: http://www.madshrimps.be/forums/show...5255#post75255

9th February 2006, 17:16

Ok, thanx for the info

jmke · 9th February 2006, 17:26

also recently a friend of mine experienced crashes on his drive with lots of file errors and blue screens in windows; in the end it crashed completely; when trying to boot with the drive connected the system would hang in the BIOS.

I took the drive home with me and hooked it up to a test system I had running, after waiting very long it booted into windows, but the drive was not recognised in the disk manager.. I tried GetDataback for NTFS and was able to recover 80% of the data on the drive.

I then proceeded to do a low level format of the drive; and now it runs back as normal.

9th February 2006, 18:09

I found the problem, DMA wasn't enabeled for the disc. It was set to PIO for some reason.

jmke · 9th February 2006, 18:35

lol

easy fix

9th February 2006, 12:41	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	How To Maximize Hard Drive Life If I asked you the question: which part of your computer is the most fragile, what would you say? What if I asked: which part is most important to you? Often, the answer to both of these questions is your Hard Drive. We'll show you how to maximize its life. __________________

9th February 2006, 12:51	#2
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	1) windows own defrag tool is no good, and only reduces defragmentation for a very small portion 2) fragmentation does not reduce your Hard Drive life. they say that with a heavy fragmentated drive the HDD heads need to work harder. But if you defrag your hard drive each day, won't that cause more work for those same heads also? indeed. If a defrag would prolong the HDD's life, don't you think large companies who sell defrag software would advertise this aspect? http://www.diskeepereurope.com/en/02...l/desktops.htm 3) a power surge "should be" handled by a PSU. If you have a decent power supply with good safety features, then no damage will occur when power surges. of course there are exceptions, and having an extra protection in the form of an UPS or surge protector can do no harm. But this damage is not limited to hard drives. If a surge is powerful enough to pass through your PSU and kill your HDD, then others parts inside your PC will be affected also. 4) backup backup backup backup backup backup backup backup backup *1000 __________________

9th February 2006, 16:23	#4
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	it was an example O&O defrag is quite good also, Diskeeper is much better than Windows's default offering. __________________

9th February 2006, 17:01	#6
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	back up all the data on that drive; then do a low level format. this might bring it back to life. I've had a maxtor drive which showed similar issues; a low level format fixed it: http://www.madshrimps.be/forums/show...5255#post75255 __________________

9th February 2006, 17:26	#8
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	also recently a friend of mine experienced crashes on his drive with lots of file errors and blue screens in windows; in the end it crashed completely; when trying to boot with the drive connected the system would hang in the BIOS. I took the drive home with me and hooked it up to a test system I had running, after waiting very long it booted into windows, but the drive was not recognised in the disk manager.. I tried GetDataback for NTFS and was able to recover 80% of the data on the drive. I then proceeded to do a low level format of the drive; and now it runs back as normal. __________________

9th February 2006, 15:44	#3
Rutar Posts: n/a	diskeeper is also not the best software tough, the only one I know that is available free for defrags

9th February 2006, 16:53	#5
Sharpside Posts: n/a	Well since this thread is about harddrives, 1 of my harddrives is slow and puts a big load on my cpu when copeing files. I had some problems of games crashing that are installed on the drive. I thougt this was a memory problem. The other day i was copieng movies from a friends external drive. The problematic drive (western digital 200gb) took 4 minutes to copy a 700mb movie while my maxtor 200gb did the job in about 30sec . Is this fixable or should i be looking for a new hdd? Greets, Sharp.

9th February 2006, 17:16	#7
Sharpside Posts: n/a	Ok, thanx for the info

9th February 2006, 18:09	#9
Sharpside Posts: n/a	I found the problem, DMA wasn't enabeled for the disc. It was set to PIO for some reason.

9th February 2006, 18:35	#10
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	lol easy fix __________________

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