For everyone who has dealt with computers, it is obvious that hard disks (HDDs) are the most valuable part of them. The billions of these non-volatile direct-access storage devices today store almost all of the data created by humankind. Despite the development of competing technologies (flash memory, etc.), magnetic recording holds the leading position. The reason for this is half a century of industry efforts and multibillion-dollar investments that have brought modern hard drives to volumes and speeds that seemed fantastic until recently (1.5 TB and 100 MB / s, respectively; RAID technologies increase these numbers several times more).

At the same time, the reliability of magnetic drives cannot but surprise, given the most complex electronic-mechanical design, low price (a few rubles per gigabyte!) And far from ideal operating conditions. No more than 2% of budget class railways fail per year; more expensive corporate models are 2-3 times more reliable. Often faults are caused by a factory defect - an inevitable companion of mass production, but the "sins" of users also play a significant role. Many drives fail and break prematurely due to careless transport, incorrect installation, poor operating conditions, and, finally, neglect of early signs of problems.

1.

Buy discs from legal retailers that offer a full factory warranty (usually 3 or 5 years). Doubtful places (radio markets, etc.) are a haven of gray imports that are not supported by the manufacturer and have at best a short seller's warranty. There you can also run into a used disk or after repair: outwardly, it is often like new, but you should not expect reliable work. The level of failures and failures of such drives is much higher, respectively, there are high chances of losing your data. Handing over a low-quality copy at such "points" is problematic.

At the same time, there are officially refurbished discs on the market. This business is carried out by specialized firms that license repair technologies from manufacturers. There is no need to be afraid of their products: the reliability is not much inferior to the original, there is a guarantee and technical support. The price is quite attractive, so the refarb takes its place in the budget segment.

2.

The choice of the brand and model of the disk is of some importance. Every manufacturer has setbacks when a new family is released to the market raw, with flaws in design and firmware and a high percentage of scrap. Technological fine-tuning usually takes 3-5 months, so the first buyers take a significant risk. It is more practical to choose a model that has been in production for at least six months, even if it is not so advanced in technology.

The Internet is very useful here: in addition to extensive technical information, user opinions are available on thematic forums and in the guest books of computer companies. If the model of interest has problems over and over again, then this is a reason to think about it. Equally alarming is the lack of feedback. In general, someone else's experience is the best teacher ...

3.

Care must be taken when transporting the disc to the installation site. Provide protection against accidental bumps and drops (at least a corrugated plastic box, preferably thick foam or bubble wrap), as well as static discharges and strong electromagnetic fields. In the cold season, aging in transport packaging for 12-20 hours is required; this is longer than usual, but it is necessary that the complex structure has time to come to an equilibrium state.

4.

Mounting a disk into a system unit is generally straightforward, but requires care. It is important to prevent mechanical damage and static discharges, to reduce the risk of vibration and overheating. If a hard disk drive is installed in addition to a previously installed drive or instead of it, then the easiest way is to take a closer look at the installation features and repeat them. The disk is fixed in the coldest place of the basket with four symmetrically spaced screws or two slide rails.

Its orientation (horizontal or vertical, cover or electronics up) is generally insignificant for reliability. Manufacturers do not recommend only installation at an angle - the deviation from the vertical or horizontal should not exceed 5 °. However, it is worth considering the "second order" effects. So, the factory markup and testing of the disk is carried out in a horizontal position with the cover up, and the adaptives formed in this case (fine-tuning of the microprogram) are written into the ROM. In other words, it is in this position that the temperature and stress gradients are closest to the parameters at which the servo labels were applied and the adaptive information was formed. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the storage device will operate most stably and efficiently in this orientation. In addition, when the electronics are located upward, there are known cases of wear products falling out of the engine, which led to damage to the nearest plate and head. In the vertical position, the disc is better cooled by convection, and, contrary to popular belief, nothing threatens the bearing.

Then the power cable and interface cable are connected. Needless to say, all manipulations are carried out on a de-energized system unit and protected from static discharges. When connecting, strictly observe the orientation of the connectors (this is especially important for the Parallel ATA interface), insert the pads tightly and without distortion. The flat PATA cable must be free of jams, sharp bends and tension - otherwise, errors in data transfer, malfunctions and slow operation of the disk may occur. If you have the slightest doubt about the quality of the loop, replace it with a new one. Remember that the cable is unbalanced: only the black connector should be connected to the hard disk drive, and blue or another bright color to the controller (motherboard).

As for the power connector, it must fit snugly on the plug of the drive to avoid voltage drops on the contacts and malfunctions. To do this, in Molex connectors, sometimes you have to crimp and clean the contact sleeves, and the SATA connector must be fixed with a drop of hot melt glue.

5.

To ensure that the operation of the hard disk does not cause problems, it is necessary to monitor its power supply, cooling, mechanical protection, and also regularly monitor its condition using diagnostic programs.

Modern hard drives are a real miracle of technology, which has absorbed hundreds of technologies and thousands of patents. They can be quite reliable if you deliberately select them for the existing tasks and correctly operate. The overwhelming majority of railroad cars calmly live up to the upgrade and are written off in working order. The user's task is to avoid gross errors and recognize dangerous symptoms in time, which will help the given recommendations.

Alas, nothing lasts forever, and with all the precautions, disks sometimes fail. In this case, you need to have a backup copy of valuable data, since there are now enough backup technologies for every taste and wallet. With the current conveniences, even inexperienced users will be able to save their "info" without unnecessary problems.

The discs have not only a glorious present, but also a great future. The theoretical limits of recording density and exchange rate are an order of magnitude higher than the current figures, so the industry has room to grow. Competitive technologies (solid-state, optical, and others) are also actively developing. However, a revolution in data storage is not yet foreseen: SSDs on flash memory claim only some market segments (primarily in the field of mobile applications), and other developments are still far from mass adoption. Oblivion does not threaten hard drives ...

Additional information on the topic of the article can be obtained from the following sources:

Learn more about attributes and their values.

- why flash drives fail and what to do in order to prolong their life.

It's not an easy question. Modern hard drives are rapidly growing in volume, but their real, non-paper reliability is steadily declining. Producers, on the one hand, are squeezed by the recording density, on the other - by intense competition. Mass models get as cheap as possible and their development cycle shrinks. At assembly plants, budget components are widely used, and there is savings on input rejection and even on output control. The unspoken motto of the manufacturers is “Everything will go into business”. There is no time to test "raw" technical and software solutions, and this has to be done by consumers, that is, all of us.

The answer to such an outrage can be both the recently discovered eleventh commandment "Honor the backup of the Sabbath and do not kill the system disk image", and a whole article about the problems and methods. In any case, competent backup of the proper level is a thing, as it turns out, quite costly both in money and in effort.

The habit of connecting an external hard drive to a computer at least once a week and running a backup should be recognized as extremely useful and should be cultivated in every possible way.

Not all users can boast of the constant availability of fresh, workable copies, stored in a safe place and ready at any time to replace files lost for one reason or another. Despite the variety of backup software and all the cloud technologies that have developed in recent years, regular backups are hampered by both banal inertia and laziness, and the unwillingness of many to go for tangible costs. The same NAS-storage is worth in a decent version as a whole system unit, and with the current rise in price of HDD, even more. Internet services that provide really ample storage space are also far from free.

Therefore, it is best not to lose data, but to do this, behave carefully and try to make sure that hard drives - the main information carrier of our era - fail as little as possible. A competent choice of the HDD model, its correct installation and operation will help to avoid emergencies. It will not be superfluous to monitor the state of the drive and periodic preventive maintenance. We will talk about all this.

But first I would like to dwell on the reasons for data loss. According to statistics collected by specialized companies, they are distributed as follows:

• 40% - equipment malfunctions and failures;
• 29% - user errors;
• 13% - software errors (OS, utilities, application programs);
• 9% - intentional damage to data (theft, damage, etc.);
• 6% - exposure to viruses and other malware;
• 3% - external influences (natural disasters, fires, etc.).

As you can see, the widespread opinion that the user himself is to blame for computer problems is incorrect - most often technical failures lead to troubles. And the "human factor" (read: the curvature of the arms) takes only the second, but also significant place in this rating.

How do hard drive malfunctions manifest themselves? There are not too many symptoms, so here are the most common ones along with their probable causes. We will omit the reasons that come down to the incorrect actions of the user himself.

Symptom	Problem
HDD does not start	Electronics board defective
HDD starts, but the spindle does not spin up and emits unusual sounds (squeals, buzzing, clicks)	Sticking heads on the plate, or spindle bearing wedge. Also, at the same time, the control microcircuit on the board is very hot.
HDD normally starts and spins up, but it is not recognized in the computer, BIOS cannot read the passport	Destruction of the bootable modules of the firmware (located in the ROM on the board or in the service area on the plates)
HDD starts, but is not recognized and knocks	Inconsistency between the data in the ROM and the service area (occurs when the ROM is damaged or the board is replaced with a "foreign" one), or failure of the magnetic head unit or the microcircuit that controls it on the board
The HDD is recognized, but during operation it emits uncharacteristic sounds (knocking, creaking, rustling, etc.)	Multiple surface defects up to table overflow
HDD is recognized, but data is not available, reading any sector returns "dirt" or an error	Damage to the service area modules, primarily the translator (responsible for translating logical LBA addresses into physical ones, taking into account the tables of defects - both factory-made and those that appeared during operation)

This classification will help diagnose most breakdowns. It is clear that a modern hard drive is an extremely complex product and cannot be brought back to life at home. There are exceptions, but they are increasingly rare. Universal advice: in case of any malfunctions, immediately turn off the disk and take it to a specialist for diagnostics. Decent people and companies do not take money for it. This is especially important with knocking heads - they can pretty much spoil the magnetic surface (scratches, cuts, potholes), and then the data cannot be pulled out.

This illustration shows the only correct hand position for the user after a power outage in the event of an apparent hard drive failure. When you come to your senses, you need to carefully remove the HDD from the computer and take it to a specialist. Anything else is dangerous to your data

Choosing a hard drive

Customers often ask which brand of hard drives is better and more reliable? So, from the point of view of a repairman, no brand is in the lead. All HDD manufacturers (and they can already be re-read on the fingers of one hand) have reached approximately the same quality level. Companies facing serious problems have long since withdrawn from the market, and those that remain are prioritizing reliability. All this actually removes the question of choosing a brand.

Yes, every vendor has unsuccessful models and families, well, that's why you have the Internet at your side to go through the specialized forums. Typically, stories about problem models always hang from the top. Just keep in mind that the information becomes outdated rather quickly, because the production program is updated twice a year, and the lines already released are constantly being improved, and sometimes significantly. So, a manufacturer can secretly replace three 333 GB plates with two 500s in a terabyte model; it will cost him less, and the performance will jump significantly (a bonus to the user, however). But how the modernization will affect reliability is an open question.

Western Digital has always been famous for its "love" of quietly upgrading its drives. Outwardly, they can be similar, like twins, but from the inside they can have completely different component implementation.

The pace of changing HDD models is now such that it is useless to ask repairmen about their reliability - they begin to carry disks for repairs when they have already been discontinued and disappear from sale. They are being replaced by new developments - attractive in specifications, but "black boxes" in terms of internal structure and reliability. So it is, alas, impossible to draw technically sound conclusions about the weak points of new products.

From my point of view, it is not worth buying a disc of a new model that has just appeared on the market. In new products, there are untested solutions, besides, the quality of the first batches is unstable, you can run into a manufacturing defect. Problems with firmware ("brakes", incompatibility, etc.) are also more common for beginners. There is nothing to be done - mass production in a highly competitive market cannot be established without flaws. I advise you to take a closer look at the models announced at least six months ago - during this time, the technological development will end, the statistics of failures will accumulate (see reviews on the Web), and prices will have time to decrease.

An important question is the choice of the HDD model range. Under the same brand, today lines for various purposes are produced, belonging to different price categories and, accordingly, having very different performance and reliability. First of all, the consumer and corporate segments are separated. You shouldn't expect the same reliability from a "household" disk as from a server one. Enterprise-class drives (Seagate ES.2 / Constellation 2, Hitachi Ultrastar, WD RE4 / VelociRaptor) are assembled from particularly solid components, are tested more rigorously, and are distinguished by a more complex design and improved firmware. Often, the recording density in them is deliberately lowered. As a result, the disks have a high MTBF (MTBF up to 2 million hours), are resistant to overheating, can withstand 24/7 operation under high load, and a long warranty (five years, but from January 2012 in some cases - three years) warms the soul. The only drawback, but important for many, is the high price: one and a half to two times more for the same capacity.

For storage devices used in everyday life, heating and noise are very important. It is not for nothing that the "green" lines of 3.5 ”have won such great popularity. In them, the spindle speed is deliberately reduced from 7200 to 5400-5900 rpm, and this significantly reduces noise and power consumption. As a result, the disks heat up little and demonstrate good reliability, but their performance is low. Such models are ideal for storing multimedia files with predominantly sequential access, as well as for use in external drives and network storage (where the interface itself imposes its limitations). "Green" disks are used to complete consumer electronics (video recorders, media servers, etc.) and especially compact PCs, where active cooling is undesirable due to noise or is completely impossible. Many are attracted by the cheapness of such drives: in terms of the dollar / GB ratio, they lead the market. Even as skewed as the current one.

A high-performance storage device is required to host the operating system, application programs, and random access databases. 7200 RPM models with a powerful magnetic head drive and read-ahead algorithms are better suited here. However, such drives get hotter and, as a rule, need active cooling (best of all - a large-sized slow-speed fan at the end of the drive cage). Otherwise, the drive can quickly fail due to overheating. The recommended temperature limits for storage devices are rather narrow - 25-45 ° С with short-term rises up to 55 ° С. In a windproof housing, during active operation, "hot" models (for example, Hitachi 7K2000) constantly heat up to 50 ° C and higher.

The next thing that interests the user is the capacity of the HDD. The higher it is, the better: such is the general belief. However, it is often overlooked that reliability is inversely proportional to capacity. After all, the higher the latter, the more magnetic plates and heads are used in the design and the more likely it is that one of the heads will fail. In addition, the multi-plate disc consumes more energy and heats up more, and the significant weight of the package (3-4-5 plates with a thickness of 1.6 mm) gives an increased load on the axle and provokes a spindle wedge even with mild impacts. This, by the way, is one of the most difficult problems in the practice of data recovery.

So high-capacity drives (2 TB and higher) are quite capricious. They really do not like even minor mechanical influences, and are also sensitive to overheating. I would advise treating discs like crystal glasses. You should even put them on the table (in an inoperative state!) With care. Flaunting in the specifications of 300-350 g is at least unconvincing. Nobody knows how it was measured.

I proceed from practice. We sell discs in antistatic bags, no shock absorption. He blurted out a two-terabyte one like a pack of butter - and a week later fifty candidates for "bad" (in the jargon of repairmen - "pendings"). There is also submicron accuracy, the width of the track is only 150-200 nm, in the thickness of the hair there are as many as four hundred. Any misalignment of the shaft generates positioning errors (the S.M.A.R.T. Seek Error Rate increases) and defects. The repairmen, by the way, all movements with disks in their hands are slow and smooth, like in wushu. A good reflex based on bitter experience.

Let me summarize slowly: for reasons of reliability, it is worth dividing all disks by the number of platters. For installing the OS, a model on one plate is best suited (they are the most reliable, and they heat up less), and for storing working data (documents, current images, databases, etc.) - on two. High-capacity HDDs with three or more platters (it is better if they are of the "green" series) should be reserved for less important information that does not require backup. After all, a full backup of such a volume at home, for obvious reasons, is difficult. These can be multimedia files, including those downloaded from the Web, or something else that has duplicates. Anyone who "shoves" a three-four-platter into the outer case takes a big risk: the shock absorption and stability of such cases are usually weak, and problems with power supply occur.

By the way, about the purchase. It seems to be clear to everyone, but I repeat: you should not buy HDDs from hands, in the markets or in small questionable shops. You may come across a disc from a gray import, or even a second-hand copy or after repair. It will look like new, especially since with some kind of qualified repair, all S.M.A.R.T. counters indicating "mileage" are reset. But the wear of the mechanics does not go anywhere, and the life of such a disc will be short-lived. You should not count on warranty obligations - they are illusory in such places. Small savings can turn into big problems, but who cares?

Buying HDD is not clear where, it is impossible to imagine its past. Maybe the disc was peacefully lying on the shelf, waiting for the owner, or maybe some amateur photographer had time to take it apart for such a shot ...

It is even more fun if the hard drive has suffered a serious blow, and the owner sells it urgently, while the breakdown has not yet manifested itself in full glory (this sometimes takes several days). Of course, if you have known the seller for a long time, then he will not go to such tricks. But it is best to take discs from serious trading companies that have been on the market for a long time and provide a real guarantee for the full period set by the manufacturer (and not as others like it - 6 months, at least according to ZoZPP, and go for a walk). Even if it is more expensive.

From time to time, this or that trading company or service center publishes its statistics on HDD returns under warranty. Some people take it too seriously and plan to buy only the model from the lower lines of these ratings. What can I say to this - do not worry. In such cases, you need to understand three simple things:

• We do not know from which sample these statistics were constructed;
• Many models with congenital design flaws have a “death rate” peak; if the disc is recently released, it may not have arrived yet. The Seagate 7200.11 was also considered reliable drives for the first six months;
• For a retail shopper, any statistics like these are nothing more than entertainment. It makes sense to choose between several models for returns, ranging from 1.5 to 4%, except when buying a batch of thousands of pieces or more. When buying one device, the probability of breakage in such a situation is 50% - either it will break or not. Like that dinosaur joke.

The only thing that statistical reports are really useful for is that they clarify qualitative trends. In particular, the publications of the beginning of 2011 confirmed that the breakdown rate of two-terabytes is about twice (4-7%) than that of less capacious disks. Models with 7200 rpm turned out to be especially "dead" (WD Caviar Black - almost 10% of returns). So this is a solution for special cases.

The golden rule of reliability: if you need a large volume, let the spindle speed be lower

Well, and the last thing I would like to say in this section. Perfect, absolutely reliable drives do not exist; any of them can break. As repairmen like to say, hard drives have no reliability. Instead, they have a warranty card. All we can do is choose a drive according to our needs and tasks and use it correctly. Naturally, do not forget about backing up important data - with all the difficulties, a backup will be much cheaper than restoring.

Well, if the need for data recovery has arisen, please contact the specialists. Handicraftsmen, they are "sysadmins for everything", they are "general computer specialists", will not be able to cope with many cases, but finishing a disk is easy. Here is a recent example from life. The hard drive is not detected in the BIOS. The dilettante arms himself with an asterisk screwdriver and transfers the card from the serviceable twin disk to the patient, after which he already receives two corpses. It turns out that it was impossible to do this: the interaction of the ROM on the board and the "service" modules on the plates is much more complicated than the would-be repairman thought.

About correct operation

So, you have correctly selected the new 3.5 ”HDD in your system, carefully delivered it to the place, correctly installed and connected with high-quality cables. The period of exploitation begins. To make it last as long as possible and not cause problems, you should provide the disk with comfortable conditions (by the way, everything is about the same for people). Each drive needs high-quality power supply, cooling and mechanical protection. It will not be superfluous to periodically monitor the status of disks.

A drive's power is mainly determined by the quality of the computer's power supply. Also, the contacts on which the voltage drop can occur are important. The power supply unit must be of a proven brand and of sufficient power, and the power supply must be grounded. A typical PC has enough PSU for 350-400 W, reinforced equipment increases requests (from 500-700 W on powerful workstations to 800-1200 W on extreme gaming machines).

Choosing the right power supply is a big and important topic that we constantly address. And yet it should be admitted that even quite budget models have gotten prettier lately, and hard drives have been able to adapt to their quirks.

Fortunately, in recent years, the quality of power in computers has improved significantly, and HDDs for this reason now rarely fail. The situation has progressed from two sides. Firstly, the technical level of the power supply unit has significantly increased, which was facilitated by the introduction of the ATX 2.3 standard, as well as the intensified competition in the lower price segment. Short-lived ugly crafts like KME disappeared from the market, and the remaining brands use more or less decent hardware components and circuitry. Moreover, there are no problems in the middle and upper echelons. Any power supply unit can now feed the disks correctly, you just need to choose a copy of a suitable power and spread the main 12 V consumers (video cards and hard drives) along different lines.

Secondly, the drives themselves have become less "picky" to power supply and do not require such strict parameters as before. First of all, this is the merit of the "green" models, which consume much less, especially along the critical 12 V line. The reduced spindle speed (5400-5900 rpm) and a less powerful motor greatly weakened the starting current surge of 12 V. If in the old In the Barracuda 7200.10 series, it reached 3 A, but modern disks “eat” half as much at the start. The lower peak load on the PSU responds with greater voltage stability.

In the high-speed series HDD (7200 rpm), manufacturers have improved the stabilization on the board, as a result of which the input deviations of 12 V doubled: from ± 5% to ± 10% (in models with a capacity of 3 TB and above, the requirements are slightly stricter: + 10% -eight%). Almost any power supply unit fits within such boundaries - even not too pedigree and young. This means that the failures of overheated microcircuits (often with pyrotechnic effects and burnout of the tracks on the board), which were not uncommon in the past, will not be repeated.

Temperature regime

Cooling is a serious problem for many 3-inch HDDs: they get very hot during active operation, and the heat dissipation in the system unit is often insufficient. The optimum temperature for hard drives is 25-45 ° C. Both heating above 50 ° C and cooling below 20 ° C are harmful to the drive - they accelerate wear on the mechanics and slow down work due to unnecessary thermal calibrations. Overheating quickly degrades read heads, provoking failures and HDD failures. The situation is aggravated by sharp temperature changes and high air humidity (in the tropics and at sea, the temperature interval narrows further).

Some manufacturers, who do not have low-speed HDD models in their lineup, had to install 7200 rpm drives in their external drives. Of course, there was no room for a cooler in them. Seagate will soon join this club, announcing that it will not manufacture HDDs with reduced spindle speeds. True, according to the assurances of the company, there will be complete order with the temperature.

As a result, most drives need active cooling. Airflow is not required only for "green" low-speed models operating with low load (a typical example is a media server, where one MKV file is read from the disk in sequential mode). In good cases, the 120 mm cooler is installed opposite the disk cage, which can be considered the optimal solution. It is advisable to reduce its rotation speed to a subtle 700-1000 rpm and put a dust filter made of rare fabric at the inlet. This simple measure will really increase the lifespan of all components. It's nice to have the drive in the five-inch bay on the spacers and blown from the end by a small fan. More expensive, but completely silent options are also possible, such as passive radiators or heat pipes. Some modders even rivet the disc cage out of thick copper or brass for a steam-punk solution (the heat dissipation is great and the vibrations are very dampened).

It looks like an inexpensive and very effective tool for killing a hard drive.

But a compact cooler screwed to the "belly" of the HDD is undesirable - first of all, because of the impeller vibrations transmitted to the case. Especially they grow after a few months, when a low-quality plain bearing is loose (others are not put there). In this state, the cooler does more harm than good, and must be replaced. Self-made modifications to the basket also do not bring to good, since they rarely provide for mechanical decoupling. And modern discs, I repeat, are EXTREMELY sensitive to vibrations. During test scanning, it is enough to rhythmically click on the jar with a pencil to get a trail of red emissions (indicating a positioning failure).

In the correct enclosures, HDDs are cooled correctly without any additional tweaks on the part of the user

A couple more cooling tips. If there is a blower fan on the rear panel of the case, then its performance should be 20-30% less than the front blower. Adjust the speed by software or with a pull-up resistor. In this case, excessive pressure is created in the housing, and much less dust will penetrate. You can do it even easier: move the 92-120 mm fan from the rear panel to the front panel, where it will blow through the disk cage and the entire case. In its original form, such a cooler is of little use, because all three fans (rear, in the power supply unit and on the CPU) “suck” from one point and the flow hardly reaches the disks.

Stop vibration!

Vibration protection is equally important when using HDD. Vibration usually does not threaten the disk with physical damage, but it greatly reduces its performance, especially when positioning the heads. Mechanical wear increases, the probability of reading or writing errors increases, and the data stream becomes unstable. All this reduces the resource of the drive and has a bad effect on the operation of the entire computer.

The main sources of vibration in a PC are fans, optical CD / DVD drives, and nearby hard drives. The former interfere with the operation of the HDD only in case of a bad case design or improper installation, when the impeller vibrations are transmitted to the disk cage. Provide mechanical isolation to the fans (elastic mounts are useful), clean the blades from dust, if the bearing is worn out, replace the entire propeller. Optical drives can generate strong vibrations when loaded with poor quality media, often unbalanced. Try not to use such blanks. However, in good cases, the baskets for optical drives and HDDs are specially separated and mechanically decoupled.

In this basket from the Lian Li case, despite the rather dense placement of the HDD, there are no problems with vibration.

Neighboring multiple disks in one basket is a tricky case. During positioning, they interfere with each other, and slightly different spindle speeds cause beats and resonances. The result is an unpleasant hum and bounce of the case, reduced disk performance and an increase in the number of crashes. There are three practical solutions: to increase the rigidity of the basket (complete replacement or stiffening ribs at the edges); add independent disc slots (second basket, or even just a layer of foam rubber on the bottom of the case); mount all HDDs through damping elements (rubber bushings, gaskets, hangers). In the latter case, the heat sink to the basket is blocked, so blowing of the disks is required.

Trust but verify

HDD health monitoring is an important stage of operation that allows you to identify emerging problems. First of all, we pay attention to how the disk is recognized in the BIOS: the name and capacity must exactly match the label. Next - scanning the surface and viewing the SMART attributes that reflect the state of the disk. Temperature monitoring is sometimes also advisable.

These tasks are solved by a number of free utilities that do not require installation. I use MHDD 4.6 under DOS, Victoria 4.46b under Windows and HDDScan 3.3. The first two can also carry out minor repairs of disks (by reassigning defective sectors - the so-called remap). All programs are capable of monitoring the temperature of disks, but I prefer the tiny (94 KB) utility DTemp 1.0 b 34 - it does not take up memory and along the way produces S.M.A.R.T.-attributes. A wider, but also cumbersome option is the HDD Temperature 1.4 program, besides, it became paid in the latest version (150 rubles).

I would like to separately note the outstanding program HDD Sentinel 3.70. Although it is paid ($ 35 for the professional version), it offers rich disk monitoring capabilities. Many consider it to be the best in this class, since it supports almost any storage device and their combination (external drives with USB / eSATA / FireWire interfaces, disk controllers and bridges from IDE to SAS, RAID arrays based on them, SSDs). In addition to tracking temperature and other S.M.A.R.T. attributes, data is collected about current read / write operations, including general and daily statistics (useful for SSDs), disk testing is available, data backup in threatening situations, and much more.

HDD Sentinel statistics. Average daily read / write volumes are calculated

S.M.A.R.T. for SSD OCZ. The new attributes are understood

Finally, each HDD or SSD manufacturer offers proprietary utilities tailored for diagnostics and testing of their models. It is important to know that their results are unconditionally recognized in the warranty departments, and their capabilities are sometimes unique (undocumented commands are used that allow, for example, to exclude defective areas from addressing and thus return the disk to a new state). Look for utilities on the manufacturers' websites in the technical support sections. Before downloading, find out in what environment the utilities work, what they can and whether they support your models - this can be a misunderstanding.

Undocumented features are sometimes found in utilities. So, Intel SSD ToolBox allows you to do something useful only with a solid-state drive from Intel - "foreign" SSDs are not serviced. It turned out that with its help you can easily view the attributes of S.M.A.R.T. for all hard drives of a RAID array built on Intel's south bridge controller (ICH6R, ICH7R, ICH8R, ICH9, ICH10). A valuable feature, because the native Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver does not want to show any attributes. So it makes sense to install ToolBox even without a single Intel SSD.

A problem HDD with growing defects, slow reading areas, S.M.A.R.T. worsening. (albeit not for the most critical attributes), should be decommissioned. Despite the fact that such a disk remains operational for quite a long time - weeks or even months - it can fail at any time. Thanks to the advanced means of correction and concealment of defects, the degrading drive lasts to the last, and then suddenly breaks down. After that, it will be very difficult to recover data from it.

Repairmen about the confrontation between SSD and HDD

In the forums and conferences of colleagues, there are remarkable observations and conclusions. Of course, the statements I have written out are not always accurate, there are also omissions and exaggerations. But, of course, there is a healthy grain.

• Reliability is the SSD's Achilles heel. All defect management mechanisms, such as fallback page replacement, are very unreliable in and of themselves. A little power failure - and hello to the data. Or a lot of transistors failed at once, more than the ECC can digest, and the translator is destroyed. No matter how sophisticated programmatically, this problem cannot be completely removed.
• There are a lot of trustworthy stories showing that with active work, SSDs "burn out" in a year or two, and if you are not lucky, then even earlier. In addition, contrary to theory, SSDs die suddenly, leaving no chance to copy data. And recovering an SSD is fun for a fat wallet.

Taking into account the specifics of SSDs (limited number of write cycles), it can be assumed that such drives will become the next target of cyber villains. Crackers are already trying to reprogram laser printers to disable them. Tomorrow they will remotely "burn" NAND chips

• Modern SSDs experience up to 25% return in the first year and another 25% can be repaired, but often with data loss. In fact, we have 50% of failures. On the first models, it generally reached 80%. With increasing capacity and decreasing cell size, the problem will only get worse. Indeed, now the mass is used multi-bit recording of 2-3 bits per cell (MLC / TLC technology).
• Even for the server segment, Intel began to use e-MLC chips. These are, in fact, ordinary 2-bit MLCs, which simply passed the additional selection and have an increased spare area. "Impenetrable" SLCs go down in history (or a lot of money).

To be fair, Intel SSDs continue to enjoy an excellent reputation among users and are often sold under other brands - for example, Kingston or Hitachi.

• It can be predicted that consumer SSDs will still fall in quality. In general, the main problem with them is the insufficient production of NAND flash memory. A sharp increase in output is not expected in the coming months.
• For HDDs, along with failures and solvable problems, this figure for the first year is somewhere around 12-15% - three to four times better than for SSDs. Hard drives have another weakness: vulnerability to shock and vibration. And this is irreparable. Almost 80% of HDD failures are from mechanics.
• Hard drives are irreplaceable. So far, there is nothing on the horizon with the same capacity at the same price. The SSD looks like a nimble wheelchair user who needs a ton of conditions to function properly. It will remain in its niche for a long time. Without a large HDD in the neighborhood, a normal computer will not work.
• A two-terabyte hard drive at a specific price per gigabyte covers all removable media. And stillborn Blu-Ray, and outgoing DVDs, and exotic expensive LTO (a kind of tape streamer). The only thing is that a working disk cannot be thrown against the wall without consequences, unlike an SSD. True, in mobile technology this "only" can be the main ...

• I see the following scheme of a modern workstation: a system on an SSD, a smart HDD (or RAID) of medium size for working files, a large "green" disk for recoverable data (file cleaning). Regarding reliability, of course, there is a problem: SSDs, unlike HDDs, like to die suddenly. But the system images are made without problems and dumped to an external drive. I live in peace with such insurance.
• Take laptops with HDD or SSD? We can recommend models with SSD in cases where their active mobile use is expected and there is a high risk of damaging the hard drive due to vibration, shock or falling of the device. At the same time, an indispensable companion of such a laptop will be a capacious external hard drive, if necessary, connected via USB. If such a scheme seems inconvenient and unnecessary, use an HDD. The gains from an internal hard drive will outweigh the hypothetical benefits of an SSD.

• HDD is just a consumable, the main cost of which is the data recorded on it. So at the first sign of an impending failure, the disks must be mercilessly replaced!
• It is generally pointless to repair an SSD, it is a quickly wearing out resource.

WD Green and too economical heads

The WD Green series of hard drives is infamous for the following feature. The developers were so eager to reduce power consumption that they programmed automatic head parking after just 8 seconds of inactivity. They saved energy (keeping the BMG in working order requires noticeable power), but such a scenario for desktop disks turned out to be inconvenient and even harmful. For example, in RAID arrays such a "feature" is categorically unacceptable - the array collapsed very quickly, the controller simply did not digest the huge delays in unparking the heads.

Apparently, it was planned that the "greens" will be in the outer case and from time to time activated for data transmission. But life, as often happens, turned out to be simpler and rougher. With constant parking / unparking of the heads, and even acceleration and deceleration of the spindle, death comes to these discs very soon - the mechanics simply wear out. So, the nominal resource of 300 thousand parking lots can be used up in just a year.

After massive complaints, the company did not change the firmware, but released the WDIDLE3.EXE utility, which can be downloaded from the official website. Wdidle3 works directly with the drive firmware and allows you to change the auto-parking parameters (enable, disable the function, as well as directly set the waiting time). What can I say, the solution is not very convenient, especially since the utility works under DOS, and you will have to create a bootable USB flash drive or floppy disk, who else has them. The mass user, I'm afraid, is too tough.

And here's what the forums say about WD Green:

• Tell me, do you use them as the only disk? And put the system on it? Then it is clear why they fly with you. On the manufacturer's website, they are positioned as additional drives for storing large amounts of data. Their speed is understated, and the resource is lower. And under the OS, the Blue or Black models are recommended.
• The "green" series cannot be installed on servers. From a large number of calls, they become sour - the speed of work drops sharply. Suitable for home storage of multimedia files, but not more.
• Multi-threaded work is also not for them, for example, when I download a torrent to my Green, it is impossible to watch a movie from it - it slows down a lot. This behavior is both on the built-in controller and on the external Adapteс. You can put "green" in NAS, but you can't put it in SAN (Storage Area Network).
• The firmware in these disks is too smart, it compensates for the general shortcomings, but does the job as it is more convenient for it. As a result, you cannot achieve synchronicity from the "green" ones, and they will not work normally in arrays.
• Those who offered to put WD Green in RAID should be urgently sent to teach materiel. Then they will understand why it is impossible to do this and why they fall off.

WD RE wheels and their features

WD not only makes slow green drives, but their opposite, powerful enterprise drives. They got a prefix to the name RE4 (RAID Edition, version 4). The discs are crammed with state-of-the-art technology, which ensures high performance and reliability, and unfortunately, they ask for a considerable price. Of greatest interest is the TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) technology, which reduces the likelihood of a disk array collapse. How does it work?

If the disk finds a defect, it tries to handle it on its own. The correction time is sometimes quite significant and can exceed 10 seconds. But for a RAID controller, such a delay is unacceptable. If the response from the disk takes more than 8 seconds, then the RAID controller will consider the disk to be faulty and exclude it from the array, which can lead to unpleasant consequences ("array collapse" is a nightmare of any system administrator). While there is no standard for latency, these 8 seconds are common for most controllers.

Each task has its own hard drives

For a WD hard drive using TLER technology, the situation is different. When an error occurs, the drive tries to fix it on its own for 7 seconds, and then sends information about the error to the RAID controller, which decides whether to fix it now or leave it for later. The disk remains included in the array, and the controller takes care of the consequences of the failure. Therefore, it is possible to build arrays of various levels at relatively low cost, limited to inexpensive external RAID controllers or even using controllers built into motherboards.

Note that TLER assumes the presence of a RAID controller. Imagine the opposite situation: a WD RE4 disk with TLER works outside the array and a defect appears on the platters. Business as usual. However, the drive "thinks" that it is connected to a RAID controller, and if it is impossible to quickly correct the error by its own means, it transfers the problem to the controller. And he is not there! The result is a freeze disk.

It turns out that WD server drives are a specialized solution that is of little use for ordinary computers. Outside of a RAID array with a validated (ie, manufacturer-approved) controller, they will fail cleaner than an ordinary hard drive for half the money. So stupid buying of equipment on the principle "the more expensive the better" in the field of hard drives (and in many other places) no longer works.

Since the beginning of 2012, the two major HDD manufacturers have been reducing the warranty on their drives. Thus, the Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue models will receive two years instead of three. The "black" series, like external drives, will remain with a three-year commitment. Seagate took an even more radical step and dropped the warranty on the mainstream Barracuda and Momentus families to 1 year. Enterprise drives (XT and ES.2 series) stayed at their three years old.

Official explanations sound in such a spirit that the funds saved on warranty returns will be used to develop new lines. So the period of model change will be even shorter, and the life cycle of the disk will be reduced to a couple of years. The repairmen are rubbing their hands in anticipation of a wave of orders ...

How to extend the life of "older" disks

There is a popular wisdom: load the donkey in moderation. Hard drives are essentially the same donkeys. After three years of operation, their resource has already been largely depleted and the likelihood of failures is growing strongly. It has been established experimentally: if you slow down the positioning of the heads a little on such a disc, it behaves noticeably more calmly and will live much longer, and you will not notice much difference in performance.

Specifically, we are talking about AAM (Advanced Acoustic Management) technology, which regulates the current in the magnetic head drive. This affects the acceleration with which the BMG moves, which means the positioning speed and, indirectly, the disk noise. AAM management is available in many utilities (I use HDDScan). The corresponding parameter varies from 0 to 255, when released from the factory it is usually fixed at the last mark (corresponds to the maximum speed). So, it is enough to throw off the value from 255 to 252, and the disk will become easier to live. A radical option is to set the value to 128, but in this case the slowdown is already noticeable.

Evil thoughts on an empty stomach

• It's good that the repairmen are peaceful and conscientious people, they don't sit without work, they don't conflict with clients. Otherwise, out of malice, they could write such Trojans ...
• Knowing the undocumented technological commands of the disks, it is easy to spoil them hopelessly or to make it so that only the "pests" themselves can recover the data, of course, for decent money. For example, you can change some firmware modules that are stored on platters in the service area and are read only when the power is turned on. Then the computer will not be bent right away, but thoroughly. I will not develop this dangerous thought ...
• Write a script to format client volumes at noon. Bring him a server with a RAID-array to his office and copy all the information before 11:50. In a few minutes ...
• We recently found a nice malware site. Follow the link, wait a couple of minutes - and oops! Hard Disk Error. Only complete Windows demolition and reinstallation helps. Don't test without a backup! It was checked, by the way, on a computer with an antivirus.
• The best persuasion is forced marketing. Brutal, but effective. Here the Indians in America never wore shoes, and the European colonists brought them for sale. Obviously, nobody bought it. Then the fruits of a local thorn plant were scattered along the surrounding roads ...
• Choosing a hard drive according to the declared characteristics is about the same as a wife's resume.

Holiday greetings! And may the need for my services pass you by in the new year.

A hard drive is considered one of the main components of a computer system, since the system simply cannot work without it. It is capable of storing large amounts of data that can be accessed at any time. However, sometimes you run the risk of losing important data, for example if the hard drive gets damaged in some way. Winchester can fail after accumulating bad sectors for a long period of time or a sudden failure. Gradual hard drive failure is difficult to detect because its symptoms mimic other computer problems such as viruses and malware. These symptoms are usually file corruption and slower PC performance.

Hard drive malfunctions usually occur due to an increase in the number of bad sectors that accumulate over time. Hard drive failure can be sudden, complete, gradual, or partial in nature, and in most cases, data recovery is the only solution. However, data recovery can never be guaranteed with complete certainty. In this article we will try to answer the question: is it possible to repair a faulty hard drive and how advisable is it in various situations? So, under what malfunctions is it possible to repair the "hard drive"?

Electronics board defective

Typically, this problem occurs due to power outages, power surges, etc. In 99% of cases, this malfunction can be diagnosed by a complete lack of response to the power supply. The HDD should not spin up the spindle, emit any signs of operability in general, and in the event of a short circuit, some of the elements on the board can get very hot.

HDD repair in this situation is possible. It can be elemental, i.e. individual elements on the electronics board are changed, and the board can be replaced with a similar one. However, the second repair option involves only restoring the disk's operability, but not data recovery. The thing is that the process of data recovery differs from the repair process in that when extracting data, a similar electronics board is adjusted according to adaptives to the "patient bank", and in the case of hard disk repair, on the contrary, the "bank" is adjusted to the board, and a new one is created accordingly service information and user data will no longer be available.

The presence of a small number of unreadable sectors in the user zone of the hard disk.

In this case, hard disk repair is possible only if the amount of damage is small and can be hidden in the factory defect lists, or if unreadable sectors have appeared in a certain area and it is possible to cut off a part of the user zone to prevent the appearance of even more problem areas. However, we consider such repairs permissible only if this drive will not be used to store important data. The fact is that the appearance of bad blocks usually has an avalanche-like character and it is very unlikely to return life to a "broken" disk for a long time!

Damaged service area of ​​the hard disk

This problem has begun to occur quite rarely in recent years, and nevertheless, there are cases when the creation of a new service area (translator, defect lists, etc., leads to a complete restoration of the drive's performance). Sometimes this requires launching a full check and creating a new "service", sometimes just small manipulations, such as clearing SMART, recalculating the translator or shifting service areas by small values. In case of mechanical damage, it is no longer possible to restore the hard disk to work under any circumstances. Even when opening the hermetic zone of a hard drive in special conditions, it is almost always impossible to achieve normal operation. Therefore, if your disk has undergone any physical stress, it is very likely that the disk cannot be repaired, or it is completely inappropriate, since it cannot guarantee it at least some normal operation.

Damaged files

System file corruption usually occurs when the system shuts down suddenly, making it impossible to access your hard drive and therefore your system. Some of the reasons for the manifestation of corrupted files include power surges, the use of malware, accidentally closing a running program, and improper shutdown of the PC. The solution, or rather the prevention of preventing this problem, is to close all running programs before proceeding with the shutdown of the computer. In addition, the shutdown of the computer itself is best done in a standard way, and not delaying the start button or even pulling the network cable out of the outlet (although hardly anyone else does this nowadays). In addition to this, you should avoid installing malware altogether and regularly check and clean the HDD so that no unwanted programs remain there for long.

Viruses and malware

Computer viruses and malware are another factor that can have an extremely negative impact on the performance of your hard drive. They infect the system and damage the system files stored on it. They usually come into the system from an external source, such as the Internet or external storage. The attacks of these viruses and malware are initially aimed more specifically at the hard drive, and later can spread to other computers if they are connected to the infected machine via the local network. Updating your computer's operating system is one solution to this problem. Moreover, another possible solution is to install and frequently update a quality antivirus program. This antivirus will protect your system and your hard drive and make sure it stays safe from their threats. So, if the data stored on your hard drive is of great value to you, then you should not skimp on antivirus.

Manufacturing defect

Oddly enough, this point should also not be overlooked if you want the HDD to serve you as long and efficiently as possible. Hard drives that have not been tested beforehand can fail even after months of use. This problem occurs mainly with newer hard drives. The reason for this most often lies, of course, in a manufacturing defect, which leads to a hard drive failure. The best way to prevent this problem is to approach the issue of buying a new hard drive as carefully as possible and, if necessary, seek qualified assistance. It is imperative that you test your new hard drive before installing it on your computer system, if you can. And yet, you can never be one hundred percent sure that this will not happen with your purchase. So, in such a case, the only way out of the situation is to return and replace.

Overheat

Overheating is also one of the most common problems leading to hard drive failure. If the system is overloaded, the cooler may start spinning slower, as a result of which the system starts to heat up immediately after loading. Moreover, there is a high probability of hearing extraneous clicks, which indicates an overheating of the hard drive. This is due to a lack of proper ventilation or a faulty CPU cooler that overheats the system to the point that the hard drive begins to deteriorate. Part of the solution to the problem is to install the cooler correctly and provide sufficient cooling for the hard drive. In addition, you can install a special program that will notify you about the temperature of the hard drive. If it starts to exceed the maximum limit, shut down the computer for a while and let it cool down before resuming work, but in the long run, of course, do proper diagnostics.

The computer cannot detect the hard drive or BIOS

The inability of the computer to detect the BIOS or hard drive is a result of a power outage supplied by the UPS. This results in the hard drive not spinning properly, causing the PC to not detect either the BIOS or the hard drive. The best way to solve this problem is to ensure the correct functioning of the power supply for the PC hardware components, especially the hard drive. You can do this by simply replacing the cable that connects the UPS to the computer, and also replace the UPS itself with a model of a more reliable and trusted company.

Unexpected computer malfunctions

When a hard drive gets too old, it starts showing all sorts of problems that can lead to unexpected computer crashes. This is mainly due to the accumulation of bad sectors over a long period of time. As bad sectors accumulate, the hard drive's engine and read / write head gets stuck. If this happens, you will begin to hear rattling sounds, and files and folders will suddenly disappear. You can avoid this by periodically performing various hard drive checks and (again) installing antivirus programs that protect your hard drive from the threat of viruses that can create bad sectors. Moreover, replacing the hard drive every 3-4 years is also a good way to deal with this problem.

Human factor

Errors made by the user also have an impact on the occurrence of hard disk malfunctions. For example, improper installation of the operating system, making changes to the system registry settings, and changing the location of system files are all very common user errors that can cause irreversible damage to the hard drive. Avoid making any unnecessary changes to system registry settings or changing the location of system files. Also, make sure you install the operating system correctly.

Hard drives are vital to the proper functioning of a computer system. However, they are vulnerable to damage and problems that can lead to the loss of data that has been stored on them. However, by taking the necessary precautions, you can avoid possible hard drive malfunctions. Here are some tips to remember if you don't want to lose your precious data:

• Install a good antivirus program on your computer and keep it updated regularly.
• Always back up your data to a separate location.
• Never turn off your computer while any program is running.

For help in preparing the material, we thank the experts of the AIKEN laboratory.

The best programs for diagnosing a hard drive

If you do not know anything about the state of your hard drive, you may simply not have time to save your data when a critical moment comes. You should understand that any of the possible malfunctions of the hard drive can take you by surprise, which is why you will need to know when it is time to back up your data. To monitor the state of the hard drive, especially if there are no apparent reasons for any malfunctions, it is best to install high-quality software to periodically diagnose its condition. Some of the more popular programs can be found below.

CrystalDiskInfo

This is a handy free program that can monitor S.M.A.R.T.-attributes, and will display basic information about the disk and its temperature. It comes in multiple versions that include more themes and support for multiple languages. The installer may offer other software as well, so be careful, as you probably won't want to install a couple of unnecessary programs along the way. The program uses a simple interface that will display information about the status of the S.M.A.R.T.-attributes of your hard drive, hardware specifications, and temperature. If a problem occurs, you can easily find it in the attribute list.

HDDScan

HDDScan was created to support all types of hard drives, no matter who makes them. This program is portable, and after downloading you can run it directly without installing it. It can check the status of the S.M.A.R.T.-attributes of your hard drive, and in addition you can access a wider range of tests and functions. It also supports working with RAID arrays, which allows it to test for them as well. These tests include writing, reading and erasing information on the HDD. All tests performed will be added to the Test Manager section, and will automatically be queued to run upon completion.

PassMark DiskCheckup

This hard drive testing software is free for personal use. First, you will need to download a small file of 2 MB in size, and then just install the program. In the corresponding tab S.M.A.R.T. Info in the program, you will see the current state and attribute values, such as the spin up time of the disk package, the frequency of errors when reading data from the disk, errors that could not be repaired using hardware error recovery methods, and other S.M.A.R.T. parameters. In addition, the program records the history of the characteristics observed DickCheckup that can be used for comparison in the event of an out-of-control or failure. DiskCheckup can also run two types of disk tests: short (5 minutes) and extended (up to 45 minutes).

HDD Regenerator

HDD Regenerator can help reverse some of the negative effects of bad sectors on your hard drive. In some cases, it can repair problem areas, so if successful, you can continue your usual work at the computer. In other cases, the HDD Regenerator at least gives you important information before you need to completely replace the hard drive. This program is very useful as it supports many different types of hard drives. The developers claim that it can restore approximately 60% of hard drives. Although this is not the highest chance of success, this outcome is still better than nothing. The only subjective drawback is that HDD Regenerator can be a little more difficult for novice users to master.

PC crashes and errors. We treat the computer ourselves Dontsov Dmitry

Preventing hard drive failures

The hard disk is the main storage device for the information required by both the operating system and application programs. It is clear that the stability of the system depends on the safety of this data.

To always be aware of the physical condition of the hard drive, you need to check it from time to time using specialized utilities. In particular, you can enable the use of S.M.A.R.T. technology in the BIOS of your computer, which allows you to monitor many disk parameters in real time at the hardware level. If the system detects impending serious malfunctions, it will warn you about this immediately after turning on the computer and initializing the devices. When this message appears, you should immediately back up your data to another hard disk or storage device.

In addition, it is sometimes necessary to inspect the surface of the discs using, for example, the built-in inspection mechanism. To activate it, just open the disk properties window (to do this, right-click on the disk icon and select Properties in the context menu that opens), go to the Service tab and click the Run check button (Fig. 6.14). Depending on the specified parameters, the disk check may start immediately or after restarting the computer, which the system will inform you about.

Fig. 6.14. Click the Run check button

If, during the check, a message appears on the screen about the presence of bad sectors, be prepared for the fact that the disk will need to be replaced with a new one, if, of course, the number of bad sectors grows.

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In most cases, the most valuable thing on a computer is information. Information can be valuable information, and over time, a huge amount of such data accumulates on each computer. Even if there is no particular value in the information, no one wants to lose software distributions or downloaded Internet pages.

That is why, since the appearance of the first computer, it is very important to archive information for subsequent storage on external media.

Today, storage media are cheap and accessible to everyone. It seems that saving important data is not difficult, and yet many users neglect this precaution. The consequences of this irresponsible attitude are dire.

In order not to replenish the army of losers who forgot or did not want to save important information, periodically archive the data.

Windows XP, one of the latest operating systems from Microsoft, has its own backup mechanism. To run it, run the command Start? All programs? Standard? Service? Data archiving. In this case, the Backup or Restore Wizard window will appear on the screen (Fig. 6.1).

Fig. 6.1. Start window of the Backup and Restore Wizard

As you can see, the wizard allows you to work in both backup and recovery modes. You can select the required option in the next steps, to go to which you need to click the Next button.

Indeed, in the next window (Fig. 6.2) the wizard will ask you to specify the option to work: Archiving files and settings or Restoring files and settings (from a previously created copy). Since we are reviewing the process of archiving files, select the radio button to Back up files and options and click Next.

Fig. 6.2. Choosing the required action

In the next window (Fig. 6.3), the wizard will offer to select the level of process automation and the type of data to be saved. The first three positions of the switch correspond to the archiving of specific folders and data. To select a mechanism in which you can independently specify what to archive, set the radio button to Provide the ability to select objects for archiving. Then click the Next button.

Fig. 6.3. We set the mode of self-selection of archiving objects

In the next window (Fig. 6.4), you will have the opportunity to mark all the necessary data on any of the available disks, including a floppy disk, removable devices, CDs, network drives, etc. After specifying the necessary data using the appropriate checkboxes, click Next.

Fig. 6.4. Selecting Archive Objects

Finally, it is necessary to indicate the location of the future archive (Fig. 6.5). By clicking the Browse button, you will see a standard folder selection window, in which you can specify both the drive and the folder where the data archive created by the wizard should be located. In addition, you can enter the name of the archive file.

Fig. 6.5. Choosing the location of the future archive

After entering all the required information, click Next.

In the next window (Fig. 6.6), the wizard will display the summary information that you entered as parameters for archiving. If you disagree with something, click the Back button and change the required options. If everything is in order, then click on the Finish button.

Fig. 6.6. Summary information

As a result, the archiving process will begin, which can be observed in the window shown in Fig. 6.7. In this window, you can see the number of files involved in the backup, the size of the archive, the end time of the process, etc.

Fig. 6.7. Archiving in progress

After the end of archiving, a file with the BKF extension will be created in the specified folder, containing all the necessary data. If necessary, this file can be unzipped using the same wizard. To do this, just double-click on the file icon and adjust the wizard's actions.

Control over the condition of components

The number of components installed in a computer is quite large, and their cost is sometimes very high. This primarily concerns the central processor, hard disk and graphics adapter.

The stability of the computer depends on the conditions in which its components work. Any overclocking of components greatly affects the operation of the computer. It causes their temperature to rise, which in turn affects the operation of other installed components.

Of course, the temperature inside the case may not rise at all due to overclocking of computer components. This can happen, for example, due to the fact that the ventilation system does not cope with its functions, which must draw warm air out of the case and draw in cold air.

So, the state of computer components must be constantly monitored using specialized software for this.

The temperature regime of the components is monitored by many thermal sensors installed on the processor, memory, hard disk and other devices of a modern computer. The program only needs to collect, analyze and display the information it needs.

Among the programs that perform this function are Motherboard Monitor, SpeedFan, CPUCool, HDD Temperature, etc. In practice, it is quite enough to use the Motherboard Monitor and HDD Temperature utilities. The Motherboard Monitor, SpeedFan program displays information on the processor temperature, fan speed and other parameters on the computer screen, and HDD Temperature is intended only to indicate the current temperature of the hard drive.

Motherboard monitor

Motherboard Monitor (Fig. 6.8) is one of the most complex programs for displaying information about the status of computer components.

Fig. 6.8. Motherboard Monitor Utility Window

So, the program can show the temperature in the system unit, the temperature of the processor, the voltage on the processor, the constant voltage of the stabilizers, the frequency of the processor, the rotation speed of all fans installed in the system, and much more.

After launch, several program icons appear in the notification area, with which you can control it.

For a visual display, there is the possibility of an alternative display of information, as on the car speedometer (Fig. 6.9). The main feature of the program is the ability to program the appearance of a warning message when one of the parameters reaches a critical value.

Fig. 6.9. Alternative way of displaying information

Naturally, for maximum functionality of the program, it is necessary that the computer components are equipped with appropriate thermal sensors.

HDD Temperature

HDD Temperature (Fig. 6.10) is a simple, but at the same time quite effective program for monitoring the current temperature of hard drives installed in a computer.

Fig. 6.10. HDD Temperature program

The temperature of the hard disk is a rather critical parameter, especially if there are a lot of storage devices installed in the system, and the ventilation system does not have time to normally cool the insides of the system unit. In addition, the heat generated by some components, such as a processor or video card, can be increased if the computer is overclocked.

Despite the apparent simplicity, the HDD Temperature program is quite functional and performs all the operations that may be required to protect the hard drive from damage. You can set up an alert system when the temperature of the hard drive exceeds a predetermined level, as well as set the operating system to automatically shutdown when the temperature rises to a critical level.

You can constantly monitor the temperature of the disk thanks to the program icon in the notification area, which displays this information in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Electricity supply in Russia and the CIS countries will be unstable until all power supply transformer stations and installations are updated. And this will happen very, very soon.

In this regard, in order to get a more or less stable supply of electricity, you have to use all possible means at hand.

Much has been said about the consequences of power instability, but let us dwell on this again.

First of all, the power supplies of all devices connected to the computer suffer. These are the system chassis power supply, monitor power supply and power supplies for all connected peripherals. In addition, voltage surges in the mains negatively affect the operation of the input circuits of the motherboard and data storage devices. The biggest blow, unless, of course, it is stopped by all the previous circuits, falls on the central processor and RAM. As you can see, all the main components of the computer, without which it cannot function, are at risk.

Since it is impossible to change the quality of the voltage supplied to an apartment or office, you need to try to influence the voltage supplied to the computer and the devices connected to it.

The first means of defense are extension cords, which have protection against impulse noise and sudden voltage surges. There are a lot of such models of extension cords, and they differ only in price. The higher the price, the better the extension cord and, accordingly, the more secure your computer will be. As a rule, outwardly, such an extension cord looks like a box with a switch and five sockets for connecting devices (Fig. 6.11).

Fig. 6.11. Extension

More sophisticated models are equipped with a separate switch for each outlet. If a fuse blows out (and there is one) in the extension cord, only one outlet stops working, and not the entire unit.

However, even the highest quality extension cord cannot be compared with an uninterruptible power supply, whose main task is to stabilize the voltage and keep it at the same level. In addition to protecting electrical circuits, an uninterruptible power supply unit very often allows you to protect the telephone line, which is also sensitive to voltage surges that can damage the input stage of a modem or other similar device.

In addition to using auxiliary devices, it is worth taking care that devices that do not have a noise filter and are able to make their own adjustments to the operation of the computer are not connected to the extension cable to which the computer is connected.

Dust control

Dust, like the instability of electricity, also poses a certain threat to the operation of the computer.

Why is it harmful? First, dust shortens the life of any mechanical and electronic device. How does this happen? Very simple. Let me give you an example. Dust deposited in the PSU fan mechanism accelerates the drying of the fan shaft lubricant, which entails increased friction in the seat. This sooner or later leads to unstable operation of the fan, which means an increase in the temperature of the power supply components and inside the system unit. As a result, the power supply may fail, which in turn leads to damage to other computer components. As you can see, milligrams of dust that settle on the insides of computer components every day are no less dangerous than, for example, voltage drops.

Fighting dust is easy. It is only necessary to periodically carry out wet cleaning, be sure to wipe all surrounding objects from the accumulated dust.

In addition, occasionally, but also periodically, you should clean the inner surface of the system unit and all devices connected to the computer from dust. This can be done with a vacuum cleaner and a damp cloth or special cleaning kits (Figure 6.12) that are sold at any computer store. In this case, be sure to clean all the dust from the computer's power supply!

Fig. 6.12. Computer cleaning kit

In addition, the location of the computer is also important. The lower its system unit is, the more it will suck in dust. It should be installed at least 10-15 cm above floor level.

On this, perhaps, you can finish, although you can come up with more than one way to deal with dust. By observing the described rules, you can at least double the life of your computer.

Power supply failure prevention

The normal functioning of the entire computer depends on the quality of the power supply. If something is wrong with the power supply, you will immediately know about it by the fan's mockery, the temperature of the blown air, computer restarts, etc. Therefore, in order for the power supply to last a long time (and work stably), two rules must be followed.

Normal food conditions. To connect the computer, use a filter, or better - an uninterruptible power supply. Avoid connecting a computer and powerful devices such as an iron or microwave to the same filter. If possible, connect your computer to a grounded line.

Normal temperature conditions. Several factors affect the temperature regime, in particular the power of the power supply and the state of its fan. If you notice that the temperature of the air supply blown out by the fan has increased, get ready to replace it with a more powerful one. The fan should be periodically cleaned and, if necessary, lubricated the seat of its impeller.

If the power supply overheats during summer operation and shuts down due to overload, provide additional cooling for the computer. This can be done, for example, by connecting an additional fan inside the case. If the case does not provide for the installation of a stationary fan, you can purchase a fan that can be placed in a PCI slot or in a storage compartment.

To avoid disrupting optimal air circulation inside the system unit, check for all blanks on the back of the computer. This will also allow you to additionally block the path of dust entering the system unit.

Over time, a lot of dust accumulates inside the power supply, which, together with humidity, leads to the fact that the dust begins to conduct electricity. And this means one thing: the imminent failure of the power supply unit. Therefore, if possible, systematically vacuum the power supply. In this case, it is not at all necessary to open it: it is enough to use one of the ventilation holes.

Preventing processor cooler failure

The processor cooler, consisting of a radiator and a fan, performs a very important function - it cools the processor, which, by the way, loves to heat up very much. Consequently, the stability of the system as a whole directly depends on the quality of the cooler.

The main component of the cooler is the fan, since the heatsink is passive. It is known that any mechanical device requires special care, especially if it contains friction elements. Over time, the grease loses its properties, which leads to a deterioration in the operation of the device: the fan starts to make noise, vibration appears, etc. Therefore, if you hear a characteristic noise inside the system unit, know: it's time to intervene.

By the way, any cooler installed in the case can make noise, for example, a video card cooler or an additional air ventilation cooler. You can carry out preventive maintenance on all these devices in the same way as on a processor cooler.

Be sure to “wet clean” the fan by cleaning it from dust and lubricating the axles with special oil. There is, of course, another way out - buying a new radiator (fan), but, for obvious reasons, it does not suit everyone.

To gain access to the fan, it must be detached from the radiator. Typically, the fan is attached to the heatsink with four small screws. After unscrewing them, remove the fan, not forgetting to first disconnect it from the power supply.

To clean the dust from the fan blades, you can use a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. If the fan has not been prevented for a long time, the dust can form a hard crust. If so, don't be afraid to use a little force to remove it.

It is not necessary to pull the impeller out of its socket to clear the dust from the blades. However, you will have to remove the fan.

Typically, there is a sticker at the bottom of the fan slot under which there is a mounting mechanism. The impeller is held in place by means of an annular recess at the end of the iron base. After the impeller is installed in its seat, it must be fixed. A plastic washer should be put on the ring-shaped recess at the end of the iron base of the crochet, which will hold it (Fig. 6.13).

Fig. 6.13. Peel off the sticker and carefully remove the plastic ring

Your task is to remove the washer without damaging it. If the fan is old enough, this washer could lose its flexibility. In this case, you must act carefully so as not to destroy it.

In addition, the difficulty lies in the fact that the washer fits very tightly into the impeller recess. To reach the washer, pry it with a thick needle and pull it out with tweezers. The impeller can then be pulled out.

Then wipe the inside of the nest with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. The hole in which the impeller is installed must be lubricated with a special oil of sufficient viscosity. However, before lubricating the hole, reinstall the impeller and try to wobble it slightly. If you find a slight play, it is due to fan depletion. The development is manifested in the form of an uneven vibrating spinning of the operating device.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to eliminate the production completely. The only way out in this situation is to use oil with a sufficient degree of viscosity. Such oil has a high resistance to temperature rise, which makes it possible to create the most comfortable environment for the fan, in which vibration may not occur. Over time, of course, this lubricant will lose its properties, the noise will reappear, and this procedure will need to be repeated.

Thus, after applying grease to the impeller shaft, reinstall the impeller. Then rotate the impeller around the axis several times to distribute the grease evenly. In this case, a small amount of oil may appear from the side of the impeller mounting, and this excess grease must be wiped off. Finally, install the securing washer and attach the sticker.

This completes the prevention of fan malfunctions. Screw it back onto the heatsink and reconnect the power. Now you can boot your computer and check the result of your efforts.

Preventing hard drive failures

The hard disk is the main storage device for the information required by both the operating system and application programs. It is clear that the stability of the system depends on the safety of this data.

To always be aware of the physical condition of the hard drive, you need to check it from time to time using specialized utilities. In particular, you can enable the use of S.M.A.R.T. technology in the BIOS of your computer, which allows you to monitor many disk parameters in real time at the hardware level. If the system detects impending serious malfunctions, it will warn you about this immediately after turning on the computer and initializing the devices. When this message appears, you should immediately back up your data to another hard disk or storage device.

In addition, it is sometimes necessary to inspect the surface of the discs using, for example, the built-in inspection mechanism. To activate it, just open the disk properties window (to do this, right-click on the disk icon and select Properties in the context menu that opens), go to the Service tab and click the Run check button (Fig. 6.14). Depending on the specified parameters, the disk check may start immediately or after restarting the computer, which the system will inform you about.

Fig. 6.14. Click the Run check button

If, during the check, a message appears on the screen about the presence of bad sectors, be prepared for the fact that the disk will need to be replaced with a new one, if, of course, the number of bad sectors grows.

Prevention of keyboard breakdowns

The keyboard, as a device for entering information, is subject to contamination, which can soon lead to the fact that some buttons will stop pressing or will be difficult to press.

You can clean the keyboard in the following way. Turn it upside down and shake it well. At the same time, dust, bread crumbs, hair, cockroaches, paper clips and everything that once fell between the keys will begin to pour from the keyboard.

If the described cleaning method did not help, try another one.

First, pull all the keys out of the keyboard, prying them, for example, with scissors. Remember to arrange the keys in the same order as they were on the keyboard.

Then wipe down each key to remove any adhering dirt.

After that, assemble the keyboard and try to work on it.

Preventing mouse malfunctions

The mouse, like the keyboard, is susceptible to dirt, which results in poor control of the mouse pointer on the monitor screen. This is especially true for mechanical mice, the main element of which is a ball.

If you have a mechanical mouse, turn it upside down, open the nest (on the lid covering this nest, you can see how to remove it correctly) and pull out the ball. Then clean the rollers that were in contact with the ball from the adhered dirt. It is also helpful to wipe the ball itself with an alcohol wipe.

Assemble the mouse and clean any dirt from the corner supports on which the device case slides. Then wipe the body of the mouse itself.

If the control of the mouse pointer has not improved much, you can try to disassemble it and remove dirt from the photo sensors responsible for moving the mouse in different directions.

A computer, like a dog, is a friend of man. Accordingly, caring for him should be the same as for a living being. If you do not take care of your computer, it will frustrate you, giving you malfunctions. It is good, of course, if these are software glitches that can be fixed fairly easily. However, if components start to fail, it may happen that you say: “Why did I buy it - only problems”. Therefore, you need to be able not only to take care of the computer, but also to correct the arising malfunctions.

You've read about the many troubleshooting steps that can help you bring your computer friend back to life. Of course, all the malfunctions and methods of dealing with them could not be described in a small book, but this does not mean that you cannot fight them. The main thing is a conscious approach to the problem, which will help to deal with it using familiar means. It is in such situations that a great thing is born - experience.