What is a computer hard drive? How to choose a hard drive: tips from professionals All about laptop hard drives and labeling
Hard disk drive (HDD)- is one of the most important component parts of the computer! And it is the hard drive that most often fails. As a result - loss sometimes, the most important information. Therefore, to choose HDD must be dealt with with the utmost seriousness! In this article, we will analyze what There are hard drives how select hard disk (HDD) for your computer as avoid data loss problems and with the help what programs can restore it.
Hard disk size.
Hard disk size (its width, suitable for standard mounts in desktop computers and laptops) calculated in inches.
Usually for home (stationary) system units used hard drives 3.5 inches (3,5" ).
For laptops- 2.5 inch, respectively - 2,5" .
connector type.
HDD slot interface there are two types - IDE and SATA.
IDE- still comes across in old computers and differs in the number of veins on the line ( 40 and 80 lived, they are interchangeable, differ in the speed of throughput ).
IDE - connector
SATA- newer, modern interface. Of course higher throughput compared to IDE.
SATA there are three types. SATA(up to 1.5 Gbps), SATA 2 (before 3 Gbps) and SATA 3 (before 6 Gbps) . They differ in data transfer speed.
SATA, SATA2 , SATA3 - interchangeable. But before you buy a more expensive hard drive with SATA3 , make sure your motherboard supports SATA3, otherwise, you will receive an inappropriate expenditure of funds, because SATA3 HDD connected to the interface SATA on the old motherboard, will operate at limited speed until 1,5 Gbps, without using all its capabilities.
SATA - connector
Hard disk capacity.
Quite often, computer users confuse concepts - memory and volume.:) Remember, please, the hard drive has only cache memory(we'll talk about it below ...).
Wow, this is - capacity! Namely - amount of digital information which one or the other is capable of accommodating HDD Now the volume of the hard disk is calculated in Gigabytes (GB) and Terabytes (TB).
For reference: 1 TB= 1024GB
1 GB= 1024MB
Disk rotation speed.
A fairly common indicator of HDD speed is disc rotation speed(rpm). Of course, the higher the rotation speed, the more the hard drive will make noise and its power consumption will increase (this affects the service life). If you are going to purchase an HDD, just for storing information (an additional disk), in this case, you should not chase speed. I advise you to choose a faster hard drive - if you install the Operating System on it. At the moment, 7200 rpm is the most the best option.
Cache size.
cache memory(buffer) is intermediate memory. It is designed to increase the speed of the hard drive while accessing its data. AT "cache" storedresponses to the most frequent requests of the system and applications.And of course, there is no need to constantly read information from the disk itself. it increases the coefficient useful action HDD and system in general. The size of the "cache" in modern hard drives typically ranges from 8 before 64 Mb.
Manufacturing firm.
At the moment, the main manufacturers of hard drives are - western digital,
Hitachi,
Samsung,
Seagate Technology, Toshiba. You can argue to the point :) to argue which company is better ... But let's get to the facts.. Let's type in a smart search engine Nigma.ru "hard drive problem....."(instead of dots - we write the company):
hard drive problemHitachi- requests 5 400 000.
hard drive problem Seagate- requests 5 500 000.
hard drive problemWestern Digital- requests 7 400 000 .
hard drive problemsamsung- requests 17 000 000.
As you can see, the first place in terms of reliability is Hitachi, the second Seagate. Although I would, based on my own experience, put in second placeWestern Digital (WD).
WD come with stickers in different colors - Black(black), Blue(blue), Green(green). The most reliable is Black, In second place Blue and on the last Green.
So, when choosing a hard drive:
1. Important! You need to find out - what connector on your old hard drive. If a IDE, then I advise you to look at the connectors on the motherboard. In the presence of SATA-connections, better to buy SATA hard drive. With absence sata, buy IDE.
2. Important! Find out if your old power supply will pull a new one (perhaps more voluminous and speedy) HDD.
You can learn how to do this by watching the video tutorial.How to Choose the Right Power Supply!
3. Decide on volume(number of GB), speed(rpm) and "Keshem"(8-64MB) hard disk.
4. Choose manufacturer.
How to avoid data loss problems.
1. Keep a backup a copy of the data on removable media.
The hard drive, or hard drive, is the main and very important part of the computer. It stores not only the operating system that controls the computer, but also all the information of the client or several clients. It often happens that the value of information is many times greater than not only the cost of the hard drive itself, but also the computer as a whole. Therefore, the security of information largely depends on the quality and reliability of such a drive. A modern hard drive looks like the one shown in the picture.
What is a Winchester?
So, what is a drive after all, on the performance of which the well-being and good mood of its owner depends? In fact, a hard drive is a high-tech equipment that stores digital information even when the computer is turned off.
To be more precise, the hard drive consists of several magnetic disks, on which information is applied and read using a magnetic head. These heads, together with magnetic disks, are in a vacuum, which allows the drive to work without the influence of the external environment on the process of writing and reading information.
What types of hard drives are there?
So, we found out that a hard drive is an information storage device for a computer. Now let's see what types of HDDs are. First of all, it should be noted that hard drives can be divided into two categories:
- External drives that can be connected to any computer via a USB interface. In some ways, they resemble a flash drive, only larger. Such hard drives do not need special software.
- Internal HDD drives are installed inside computers and have specific connectors for both power and information transfer.
Internal HDDs are also divided into several categories. There are several criteria by which a hard drive can be classified. This is the physical size of the hard drive. There are three sizes:
- 5.5 inches. Typically, hard drives of this size are used in desktop computers, where there is a lot of free space.
- 3.5 inches is used mainly in laptops, where space is limited, and a large amount of memory is needed.
- 2.5 inches are used in ultrabooks where space is very limited.
Another sign by which drives are classified is the data exchange protocol between the hard drive and the computer. What protocols can the hard drive use? They are as follows:
- IDE- old version protocol, which was used mainly on computers and laptops until 2000.
- SCSI is a contemporary of IDE, a faster version of drive management that was used primarily in server machines. Required special drivers to use such hard drives.
- SATA is a modern version of the protocol that has several options and has a high speed of writing and reading information. It is used in almost all modern computer systems.
Hard drive problems
One of the most frightening messages that you can see on the screen says that the computer does not see the hard drive. Why does this scare computer users so much? With such a malfunction, the device does not load the operating system; accordingly, practically no actions provided for by this system can be performed.
What can cause such a malfunction? The simplest problem leading to this result is a violation of the integrity of the power loops or the system interface. Often, dust or dirt getting inside such a connector leads to this malfunction. And most experienced users are not particularly frightened when such a message appears, but simply reconnect the power and interface connectors. This inscription may look something like the one shown in the photo above.
Hard drive not visible to BIOS
When such a malfunction occurs, the first thing to determine is whether the problem is physical or software. How to find out? After a message appears stating that the computer does not see the hard drive, you must restart the machine and enter the BIOS. What is a BIOS? This is a program that is stored in the ROM of a computer motherboard. It is loaded even before the operating system and determines the peripherals that the motherboard will work with. For BIOS boot you must press the corresponding key on the keyboard, usually the DEL or F2 button. After entering the BIOS, you can see the following picture.
This photo shows that the BIOS did not detect hard drives on the computer. In this case, the problem described above could occur, and the computer, being disconnected from the power cable or interface, is invisible to the BIOS. On the other hand, any malfunction in the hard drive control board will lead to such a problem. Moreover, if it is possible to solve this problem, then only in the appropriate service center. It is almost impossible to eliminate it on your own at home.
Windows 7 does not see the hard drive
But there are times when the hard drive is visible to the BIOS, but the operating system does not boot or Windows is constantly rebooting. In what cases does this happen? Then, when, when working with the operating system, one of the system files or an error occurred while overwriting and the file cannot be read correctly. Physical damage to the hard drive, scratching or chipping of the disk surface may also occur. If one of the system files was located in this place, then the operating system will not be able to read it and will issue, as system administrators say, a blue screen of death that suggests rebooting the system. If the error persists, it is best to contact the system administrator. Sometimes such software errors are easy enough to fix without reinstalling the operating system. But it happens that they are fatal, and they can only be fixed with a complete reinstallation of the system. To solve this kind of problems, system utilities are usually used that deal with the restoration of software errors. What are these programs?
Hard drive software errors
There are quite a few programs for recovering software errors that can be divided into two categories. The first includes utilities that are inside the system, and they can be used after the operating system is fully loaded. These are sets of programs for servicing hard drives.
For example, how to maintain a Windows 7 hard drive? You can service your drive directly from the program. To do this, just go to "My Computer" and select the disk that we want to serve in it. Click on the "Properties" tab and see the following picture, shown in the photo above.
Hard drive maintenance programs
As you can see in the picture, the user is offered three utilities:
- Check for errors.
- Disk archiving.
Errors are corrected only by the first program, and the rest will simply serve this disk. But there are programs that work without an operating system. The advantage of such utilities is that they can serve the disk even when the operating system does not boot. For example, one of these programs is called FDISK and was developed by Microsoft as a disk maintenance utility before installing the operating system. It is used by experienced users of Norton Disk Doctor computer equipment, and there are actually quite a lot of such programs, so the choice largely depends on the preferences of a particular person. Before installing Windows from a hard drive, it is advisable to service it with a similar program and correct possible errors.
Hard drive recovery
Often, many users are faced with the problem of recovering data on a problematic hard drive. As mentioned above, often the information stored on it is valued much more than the hard drive itself. Therefore, the work of recovering lost data is not only valuable, but also highly paid. Much depends on how the information disappeared. It is important to remember how Windows deletes information from the hard drive.
The operating system does not erase the information that the user wants to remove. It simply removes the hard drive's table of contents, which allows you to find this information. Such a table of contents is called a FAT table. And if after that on the body hard Windows disk 10 other information was not recorded, then it is quite easy to restore it. There are many programs out there that can do the job. According to many users, one of the best is Acronis Recovery Expert.
Hard drive backup
Be that as it may, not a single user wants to be constantly under the threat that valuable information is in danger. Therefore, efforts are made to minimize risks. What can be done? Backing up the useful information of the hard drive as a whole or a hard disk sector helps to solve this problem.
What are the backup methods?
- In manual mode. The user independently chooses what information and when the program will save. Some companies in their own offices prefer to back up data at the end of the shift. But at the same time, there is a danger of losing information that has accumulated during the day.
- Backup in automatic mode. In this case, the program is invested in how often and what should be copied and saved.
- Creation of a mirror RAID array, which stores all the information from the main hard drive in parallel on another hard drive. If the latter fails, you can easily use the mirror.
Hard disk selection
Paying great attention to the safety of information, do not forget about the choice of the manufacturer of the hard drive, as well as the technical parameters that characterize the quality of this hard drive. If we talk about the brand of the drive manufacturer, then it is worth choosing a more well-known company, although such a hard drive will cost a little more. Some users prefer Seagate.
If we talk about technical parameters, then all things being equal, you should pay attention to the speed of reading and writing information. Sometimes this data will help you make a choice in favor of a particular hard drive.
Summarize
So, a hard drive is a storage device of very valuable and important information in a computer. Therefore, it is necessary to make a lot of efforts in order to choose a high-quality hard drive. You should also take care of regular maintenance of your device. In addition, it is important to pay attention to the security of information, if any, on your computer. If you make all these efforts, then your hard drive will serve you for a long time, and the information on it will be completely safe. The operation of your device is completely in your hands, so take all measures for its normal functioning.
I recently had to look for a replacement hard drive WD Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS, 320GB, HDD, SATA II, 3.5″ which successfully worked for 9 years in a RAID array on the server, but alas, it did not last forever and failed. And in order not to get into trouble, I decided to understand the Western Digital notation system and wrote this small reference note.
Western Digital Hard Drive Model Designation System
The alphanumeric code of Western Digital hard drives consists of 7 logical blocks. For example, the part number of our WD3200AAKS drive looks like this:
(1
)WD( 2
)320(3
)0(4
)A( 5
)A( 6
)K( 7
)S
where:
1. block - WD = Western Digital.
2. block is one or three digits that are used to determine the volume of the disk. The volume is measured in the quantities indicated in block 4.
3. block - serves to highlight some features. For example, the WD5001ABYS disk differs from the WD5000ABYS only in that the former has a perpendicular recording method versus the parallel one of the latter.
4. block - a letter that determines what the volume indicated in block 2 is measured in, as well as the form factor of the disk:
A - gigabyte / 3.5",
B - gigabyte / 3.5″ or gigabyte / 2.5″,
C - 3.5 ",
E - terabyte / 3.5",
F - 10 GB/3.5",
G/H - gigabyte/3.5″.
5. block - a letter that says the market segment for which the disk is intended, and the family to which it belongs:
A - Desktop / Caviar;
B - Enterprise / RE2 (3-plate) / RE2-GP;
D - Enterprise / Raptor;
G - Enthusiast/Raptor X;
L - Enterprise/VelociRaptor;
V - Audio-Video (Audio and Video Equipment);
Y - Enterprise / RE2 (4-plate) / RE2-GP / RE3 / RE4.
6. block - a letter describing the turnover and size of the cache:
B - 7200 rpm and 2 MB cache;
C - Caviar Green and 16 MB cache;
D - Caviar Green and 32 MB cache;
F - 10000 rpm and 16 MB cache;
G - 10000 rpm and 8 MB cache;
H - 10000 rpm and 32 MB cache;
J - 7200 rpm and 8 MB cache;
K - 7200 rpm and 16 MB cache;
L - 7200 rpm and 32 MB cache;
P - RE2-GP and 16 MB cache;
Y - RE2/RE3 and 16 MB cache or RE4 and 64 MB cache;
R - Caviar Green, 64 MB cache and Advanced Format;
S/E - 7200 rpm and 64 MB cache.
7. block - a letter describing the hard disk interface:
B - PATA-100;
E - PATA-133;
D - SATA-150;
S - SATA-300;
X - SATA-600.
Based on these data, I picked up the closest analogue available for purchase WD3200AAKX. In the designation, it differs by one last letter, which says that the interface of the new SATA-III disk.
Jumper Assignment on the Western Digital Hard Disk Controller Board
If desired, it can be forced to switch to SATA-II mode. The function of lowering the speed of the controller by one step is present in most models of hard drives from Western Digital. To do this, you need to install a jumper between pins 5 and 6. 
To compare the reliability of drives in the table, pay attention to the "Disco Days" (Drive Days). If the sample is less than 50,000, then it is too early to draw conclusions.
The total bounce rate in the first quarter of 2018 of 1.84% is the lowest on record. This indirectly means that disks in general are becoming more reliable.
Total
Despite numerous advice, the choice in practice is always more difficult. When buying, you have to choose between speed and memory. But the main thing is to prioritize. This mini-instruction will help you:
- Decide on the purpose of the disk, this is a key factor when choosing a drive
- How much hard drive do you need
- Select manufacturer
External drives are just a box and a hard drive inside. Therefore, despite the fact that external drives are produced by many more companies. For example, an external drive may be from Transcend, but inside it will be .
As a result, if you managed to get a disk, then detailed information is always written on the hard disk itself, such as volume, model, manufacturer, and so on.
For Windows users
Through My Computer. This method is suitable for Windows OS. This is the easiest way and does not require the presence or removal of the hard drive itself. It is enough to do the following:
- right-click on the shortcut "My Computer";
- click on the item "Management";
- go to the tab "Storage Devices" - "Disk Management";
- also in the "Device Manager" tab, select "Disk devices", there you will see the disk model.
The procedure may vary slightly depending on the version of Windows. In any case, in the Device Manager under "Disk Devices" you will see all the models of SSD and HDD that your operating system sees. If you know for sure that you have a hard drive and valuable data on it, well, this is a reason to turn to specialists.
For Linux users
via hdparm. Such a way. This program is automatically installed in every modern version of Linux.
To access it, you need to open a terminal and run hdparm in the console with the -i /dev/hda option. You will see the main parameters of your hard drive
With the help of programs
All will show which device you have installed. Also, this function is available in all applications for testing and analyzing the configuration of a computer. For example, in EVERSET, just select the "Storage" tab and you will see every characteristic of your Hard Drive.
Do not be surprised if you see a total volume less than stated, it is always lower than stated due to the characteristics of the manufacturers. The difference is always ~7%, so for a 500 GB drive, we get 465 GB of free space. If every gigabyte is important to you, always choose with a large volume.
The hard drive consists of aluminum or glass plates coated with a ferromagnetic material. divided into tracks, tracks are divided into sectors. Servo marks are applied to the magnetic surface. Thanks to them, the hard drive head quickly finds the desired sector. In case of mechanical damage or as a result of physical wear, the disk may become unstable. This means that there are other errors on it as well.
To detect bad blocks and other malfunctions, special utilities are used. The utility is able to scan the HDD sectors and give the user information. The evaluation of the state of the disk is carried out on other data.
SMART technology allows you to use the built-in self-diagnostic equipment and predict the device failure time. All SMART indications can be divided into 2 groups:
- Parameters of natural disk aging (number of revolutions, head movements, on-off cycles).
- Current drive parameters (height of the head above the surface, the number of reassigned sectors and search errors, the number of search errors).
In the list of attributes issued by SMART, the following are considered decisive:
- Reallocated Sectors Count. Indicates the number of sector remapping operations. If the drive detects a read/write error, then it moves to a special remap standby section. The transfer process is called remapping. On modern disks, you cannot see the bad sector, since it is hidden in the remapped sector. Bad sectors are replaced by spare ones. If the Reallocated Sectors Count indicator turns yellow, the specialist determines that there are few spare sectors left.
- Current Pending Errors Count. It is considered to be one of the critical indicators. Takes into account sectors not read the first time and marked as unstable. The decision on them is postponed until the next reading. If the read attempt succeeds, the sector will become stable. If the error occurs again, a recovery attempt will be made. If unsuccessful, the drive will perform a remapping operation. An increase in the Current Pending Errors Count attribute indicates disk degradation.
Unstable sectors appear very often. During a sudden interruption of power supply, a faulty power supply, improper shutdown of the OS, a disk write error may occur. An attempt scan will help get some of them back on track.
If in general there are no comments on the operation of the disk and other indicators of S.M.A.R.T. is normal, then when unstable sectors appear, no action needs to be taken. A non-zero value for the Current Pending Sector Count parameter indicates problems, but does not always mean that the problem is in the disk itself.
The HDDScan program is designed to analyze the state of drives, including most external ones, analyzes the integrity of the saved data on the drives. With HDDScan you can also view S.MA.R.T. attributes. Contains hard drive temperature monitoring, allows you to check the drive for performance - the ability to save and retrieve information.
The main purpose of the program is connected inside system block computer or laptop, as well as hard drives connected using external ports.
Program features
The main features of the program:
- free use;
- there is no need to make an installation;
- check available for flash drives.
The HDDscan program is completely free and can be downloaded from the official website - http://hddscan.com. The latest version of the program today is HDDScan 4.0
Usage
Before you run the program, connect your hard drive or other storage device. If the connection was not made before launch, the drive will not be read.
The program will prompt you to select the device to be analyzed. After selecting, you need to click on the round button in the center of the window. A menu will appear, select the first item. You can click on the second item from the top - , but it is not always active, but only under certain circumstances, which are determined by the program at the stage of the preliminary check of the disk.
You can view device information before or after checking. After conducting preliminary testing, which the user, in fact, does not even know about, since it is carried out in a matter of seconds when choosing a disk for research, select the fourth menu item. The program will show information about the device, which can be verified with the information that was specified for the product by the manufacturer.
To start the analysis, click on the first menu item, which can be found again by clicking on the round button in the center of the window.
After the procedure is completed, a line will appear telling about it. Double-click on it - detailed information appears.
https://youtu.be/ZQqtow6nmDE
Scan Modes in HDDScan
There are several verification modes:
- standard check;
- random reading of certain parts of the disk;
- standard reading;
- testing that involves erasing information.
After the verification, a green, yellow or red sign will be indicated. Green indicates disk integrity, yellow indicates major problems that need to be fixed urgently in order for the device to continue working.
Results
- No installation required.
- You can check external and internal drives, hard drives and memory cards.
- Several verification modes.
- Display information about the drive.
A hard disk with important information may break during operation, due to accidental shock, or concussion. If you are prudent, then some of the files can be saved. In order not to take unnecessary risks, always make a backup and a preventive check for errors and broken sectors once every six months, after deleting junk files.
If during operation you notice that files and folders suddenly disappear, when you access a file, the computer slows down, information is copied from one disk partition to another for a long time, then you should also check.
HDD Diagnostics
A hard drive is made up of a large number of individual cells called sectors. Information is stored on each sector. Special programs are used to check sectors. During the test, the programs access each cell and measure the response time. The norm is considered to be 1 response in 3 milliseconds. If the program produces a result of 600 milliseconds or more, this result is considered critical, and the cell is incapacitated.
All modern HDDs for disk self-diagnosis. The idea of the technology is that during boot, when the HDD is initialized by the motherboard, a self-control test occurs. The owner of the computer can look at the data from SMART and, if there are problems, has the opportunity in advance before they are lost.
A failed disk may have a slower read/write head speed, and therefore a slower data transfer rate. This will significantly reduce its performance. The computer will be slower to load, copy data from / to disk, run programs.
To diagnose hard drives for errors, bad sectors, to obtain S.M.A.R.T. , speed testing uses special programs.
Programs for checking HDD
SeaTools is a set of proprietary utilities, distributed free of charge. Can be downloaded from the official site. The proposed utilities check the disk for errors of different brands, can be used to fix sectors.
SeaTools for Windows performs validation in the Windows interface. The utility for DOS is an iso image from which you can make a boot disk for checking. This version is preferred if the user wants to avoid problems with disk access by the OS during the scan.
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic is a utility developed especially popular among Russian users. Just like the previous one, it is free, it has a version for Windows and ISO. Provides S.M.A.R.T. information.
CrystalDiskInfo and CrystalDiskMark
CrystalDiskMark is capable of measuring average read and write speeds across different sections of a disk. This free, multilingual program is designed specifically for measuring speed. She works with the most popular Windows versions. In addition to HDD, it can be used for SSD and flash drives. It is presented in two versions: for installation and portable.
CrystalDiskInfo is designed to diagnose hard drives and SSDs. You can view the health status and temperature of the drive. You can view S.M.A.R.T. like so much more.
Built-in Windows Utilities
Checking with built-in Windows tools. Go to "My Computer" ("This PC" for Windows 8.1). Right click on the drive to open "Properties". Select "Tools" from the menu and click the "Check" button. Wait until the verification process is completed and the computer displays the result.
HDDScan
HDD Scan - good free program. Supports IDE/SATA/SCSI hard drives, RAID arrays, external USB/FireWire drives, SSDs, and flash cards. Allows you to check hard drives, bad sectors, get SMART data, perform various kinds of disk tests.
Victoria HDD
Victoria HDD is a popular software for diagnosing hard drives: it performs a disk surface test in order to detect possible malfunctions, checks for bad sectors, and marks bad blocks.
Victoria HDD is a fairly simple and powerful hard drive test program that was created to evaluate performance, test, fix minor problems, and format a drive.
It's frustrating when your computer crashes. Some part breaks down, you have to spend time and money on repairs. It is doubly unpleasant if a breakdown occurs with a hard drive, because in this case the information stored on the device may suffer.
Drive manufacturers have long developed a number of drive self-diagnosis procedures. A set of technologies designed to protect the hard drive from sudden breakdowns is called S.M.A.R.T. By periodically contacting, you can monitor the status of your computer's hard drive and schedule drive replacement in advance.
During operation, some sectors of the hard disk are unreadable. The appearance of such a sector may be due to physical damage to the hard drive and factory defects. Often there is a violation of the working conditions of the hard drive - overheating or power problems.
Modern hard drives have a margin of safety in the form of a so-called reserve area. If, while working with the disk, the problem sector detects itself, the computer, on its own, "replaces" such a sector with one of the backup ones. Physically, of course, the sector remains in place, but its logical number goes to the sector from the reserve area.
Such an operation is called sector reassignment, it will practically not affect the operation of the computer. The problematic sector will be added to the defect list. The very fact of reassignment will be taken into account by increasing the Reallocated Sector Count counter. There is also a similar Reallocated Event Count parameter, their values may differ. For example, if there was no actual remapping, and there were corrected soft-bads on the disk, then the Reallocated Event Count will increase, and the indicator of remapped sectors will remain unchanged.
The value of this counter can be viewed using any program for reading S.M.A.R.T data. The most popular programs in this sector are CrystalDiskInfo, HDDScan and Victoria. In addition, there are a number of programs supplied for their devices by hard drive manufacturers themselves.
By itself, remapping a sector on a hard drive is not a problem. , eliminate the consequences - also not necessary. This is a regular operation performed by the computer on its own, it does not require human intervention. However, the number of remapped sectors is an important indicator of how worn the disk surface is.
You should pay attention to the counter of remapped sectors when buying a hard drive from your hands. The Reallocated Sector Count of the new hard drive must be zero. As the hard drive is used, it is also worth, from time to time, accessing S.M.A.R.T data.
You should not judge the health of the disk by one parameter, the dynamics are also important. If the number of remapped sectors is constantly growing or has increased dramatically in a short period of time, this may indicate a serious defect in the disk surface and the hard disk needs to be replaced.
Portable hard drives are very convenient storage media. This is a regular hard drive inside a beautiful box that connects to a computer via USB. They are larger than flash drives, so they are actively used to store and transfer large amounts of information.
All manufacturers of hard drives produce their own models. By themselves, hard drives are reliable storage media. But portable models are simply more often connected and disconnected from the computer. Therefore, specific to portable USB devices are added to the standard malfunctions.
External drive not detected
When a client contacts us and says that he is, the first piece of advice is to try another wire. The reasons are different, maybe the wire itself is faulty or too long, and then there is not enough power for the hard drive. In any case, this is a simple action, so the first thing to do is try a different wire.
The next step is to try connecting the drive to another computer. There may be a problem with your USB ports or drivers on your computer. If - great. And if neither replacing the wire nor checking on another computer helped, then we recommend pulling the hard drive out of the box and connecting it directly to the computer.
Inside a beautiful box, as a rule, there is a regular SATA disk. And a separate adapter board from SATA to USB. Since external drives are often connected and disconnected, these boards sometimes fail. Even if, this may not be a physical malfunction, but a problem in the controller on the adapter board, which supplies the wrong voltage to the disk. This has already happened in our practice. Therefore, we take the disk out of the box and connect the disk directly via the SATA interface to check the operation of the disk.
Genuine Western Digital USB Drives
Owners may be surprised to see a Samsung hard drive inside the case. And owners of WD Elements or WD My Passport Ultra may be even more surprised when they pull the drive out of the box and find a USB drive inside.
If you opened the box and inside is a WD10JMVW or WD5000BMVW, congratulations, you have a real USB drive. In modern external WD models, the USB connector is soldered directly to the external electronics board and there is no adapter from SATA to USB familiar to other manufacturers. But to recover data, you must first adapt the USB connector to SATA.
| Model WD | Volume, GB | box model | Number of plates | Number of heads | Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wd2500bmvu | 250 | No | 2 | 3 | Venus |
| wd3200bmvu | 320 | No | 2 | 4 | Venus |
| wd5000bmvu | 500 | No | 2 | 4 | Dolphin |
| wd5000bmvv | 500 | wdbabv5000abk-00 | 2 | 4 | Zephyr |
| wd5000bmvw | 500 | wdbadb5000abk-u1 | 2 | 3 | FBLite/Firebird/Zephyr |
| wd10jmvw | 1000 | wdbuzg0010bbk-004 | 2 | 4 | FBLite/Firebird |
| wd5000kmvv | 500 | No | 3 | 4 | Shasta 3D |
| wd6400kmvv | 640 | No | 3 | 5 | Shasta 3D |
| wd5000kmvw | 500 | wdbpck5000abk-01 | 3 | 5 | Helios |
| wd7500kmvw | 750 | wdbpck7500adbk-01 | 3 | 5 | Helios |
| wd5000lmvw | 500 | No | 1 | 2 | Hubble LT / Hubble |
| wd15nmvw | 1500 | No | 4 | 7 | Shrek LT / Shrek |
| wd20nmvw | 2000 | wdbnfv0020bbl-u5 | 4 | 8 | Shrek LT / Shrek |
| wd30nmvw | 3000 | wdbnfv0030bwt-u5 | 5 | 10 | Pebbleb |
| wd10tmvv | 1000 | No | 3 | 6 | Helios/Shasta 3D |
| wd10tmvw | 1000 | wdbgys0010bbk-u0 | 3 | 6 | Helios/Shasta 3D |
| wd3200bmvv | 320 | No | 1 | 2 | Jamaica 4K |
| wd3200bmvw | 320 | No | 2 | 2 | Zephyr |
| wd7500kmvv | 750 | No | 3 | 6 | Shasta 3D |
If you found your drive in this table, then you have a drive with a USB connector right on the board. And if your wd5000bmvw is not detected or wd10jmvw is not initialized, then for diagnostics you first need to connect the drive via SATA.
The user-friendly USB interface is completely unsuitable for data recovery work. It does not allow sending ATA commands to the disk and working with hardware-failed hard disks in special technological modes.
In data recovery companies, in order to convert wd10tmvw, wd20nmvw or any disk from the table to a regular standard SATA connector, solder the wires directly onto the board. We also did this before, but now we use a more reliable method with replacing the board with the controller and the entire ROM.
One of our advantages as the largest data recovery center in Russia is our own stock of spare parts for all models of WD drives. And the second advantage, especially if your drive is new and under warranty, that we are in the field of data recovery. All WD drives that have been opened in our lab are still under warranty.
Examples from our USB drive recovery practice
All of a sudden, the disk is no longer recognized in operating system Windows 10. As the connected device is seen, even the model appears in the manager, but the OS freezes. After installing a suitable board with a SATA interface, it turned out that one of the two heads of the disk was faulty.
The WD5000BMVV drive is not detected, sometimes beeps. When the disk is turned on, the spindle spins up and recalibrates, while the indicator is constantly on. Periodically clicks once, stops and re-spins the engine, then recalibrates again.
Many users are interested in the hard drive device. And for good reason, because today the most common storage of information on a computer is the HDD. Further, the principles of its work and structure will be disassembled.
The Winchester is essentially like a record player. It also contains plates and readheads. However, the HDD device is more complicated. If we disassemble the hard drive, we will see that the plates are mostly metal and covered with a magnetic layer. This is where the data is written to. Depending on the volume of the hard drive, there are from 4 to 9 platters. They are mounted on a shaft called a “spindle” and has a high rotation speed from 3600 to 10,000 rpm for mass consumption products.
Next to the block of plates is a block of reading heads. The number of heads is determined by the number of magnetic disks, namely one for each surface of the disk. Unlike a hard disk player, the head does not touch the surface of the platters, but hangs above it. This eliminates mechanical wear. Since the platters have a high rotational speed and the heads must be at an extremely small constant distance above them, it is very important that nothing can get into the inside of the case. After all, the slightest speck of dust can cause physical damage. That is why the mechanical part is hermetically sealed with a casing, and the electronic part is taken out.
Some users are interested in how to disassemble a hard drive. It must be understood that the analysis of the working drive involves a violation of its tightness. And this, in turn, will lead him into disrepair. Therefore, you should not do this if you are not ready to lose all the data on the storage medium. If you do not have an urgent need to open the drive, but are just curious about what the hard drive consists of, you can see a photo of the disassembled HDD.
That is why hard disks on magnetic disks are disassembled and assembled in a special laminar box during repair. It maintains the environment necessary for such work with the help of a highly purified air supply system and tightness. Having disassembled your disk at home, you will definitely bring it to an inoperable state.
The non-working read heads are next to the plate pack. This is also called "parking position". A special device brings the heads into the working area only when the disk has accelerated to the required speed. They all move together, not each separately. This allows you to have quick access to all data.
The electronic board, or controller, is usually attached to the bottom of the hard drive. Nothing protects her, and from this she is quite vulnerable to mechanical and thermal damage. It is she who controls the mechanics. A hard drive from a laptop differs from a standard 3.5-inch only in size. The principle of operation of a hard drive is exactly the same. They can differ only in the number of magnetic pancakes and the capacity of the drive.
As you can see, the hard drive device is subject to shocks, shocks, scratches, large temperature changes and power surges. And this makes it not a completely reliable carrier of information. It is because of this that the hard drive on a laptop fails more often than on a stationary PC. After all, portable devices are constantly shaken, sometimes dropped, taken out in the cold or placed in the sun. And this, in turn, negatively affects the hard drive.
To prolong the life of the HDD, do not subject it to drops and shocks, make sure that there is sufficient ventilation of the case, and perform any manipulations with the disk only when the power is off. These shortcomings led to the emergence of a new type of SSD hard drives. Gradually, they are crowding out HDDs, which once looked like great media.
Logical device
We learned what a hard drive looks like inside. Now we will analyze its logical structuring. Data is written to the computer's hard drive into tracks that are divided into specific sectors. The volume of each sector is 512 bytes. Sequential sectors are combined into a cluster.
When installing a new HDD, you need to format it, otherwise the computer simply will not see the free space on the drive. Formatting is physical and logical. The first involves partitioning the disk into sectors. Some of them may be defined as "bad", that is, unsuitable for data recording. In most cases, the drive is already formatted before being sold.
Logical formatting involves creating a logical partition on a hard drive. This greatly simplifies and optimizes the work with information. A logical partition (or, as it is also called, a “logical disk”) is a specific area of the drive. You can work with it as with a separate hard drive. To understand how a hard drive works with its partitions, it is enough to visually divide the hard drive into 2-4 parts, depending on the number of logical volumes. Each volume can have its own formatting system: FAT32, NTFS, or exFAT.
Technical details
HDDs differ from each other in the following data:
- volume;
- spindle speed;
- interface.
To date, the average volume of a hard drive is 500-1000 GB. It determines the amount of information that you can write to the media. The speed of rotation of the spindle will determine how quickly you can access data, that is, read and write information. The most common interface is SATA, which has replaced the already obsolete and slow IDE. From each other, they differ in bandwidth and the type of connector for connecting to the motherboard. Note that a modern laptop drive can only have a SATA or SATA2 interface.
This article looked at how a hard drive works, its operating principles, technical data and logical structure.
