drives

I suppose it's time to roll up my sleeves and try to 'expose' the inner workings of the scary little box that's humming away on your desk. It's called a Personal Computer, no matter who designed and/or built it. It may have a name associated with it ... such as Macintosh (or Mac), Dell, IBM, Gateway, or any of a myriad of names depending where you live and what you decided to buy. No matter what name is associated, all desktop Personal Computers (or PCs) have a few basic components that are common. Laptop systems have the same array of components but they are usually not accessible like in a ... (view more)

An External Hard drive can come in handy for backing up files or freeing up some disk space on your PC. The only problem is they can be pretty expensive. An easy alternative is to buy a drive enclosure for about $20 and build your own using an ... internal hard drive. Building your own external hard drive enclosure can be done in as little as 5 to 10 minutes time, and without opening up your PC's case. Not only does assembling your own external hard drive save money, it provides flexibility in choosing the connections, capacity and style that fit your needs. It is also an excellent way to make ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ken H. writes: " Dear Dennis, In the device manager, all of my DVD and CD-ROM devices won't work. Device Manager states that 'a driver for this device was not required and has been disabled (Code 32)'. Question: how can I get ... these devices to work again? I have uninstalled them and restarted the computer to let it find new drivers but that didn't work. I have scanned my PC for viruses and am clean. I have also researched this topic in Google and found a post which states that this error message can appear if you have Roxio Easy CD Creator (which I do). The post suggested a ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ken H. writes: " Dear Dennis, In the device manager, all of my DVD and CD-ROM devices won't work. Device Manager states that 'a driver for this device was not required and has been disabled (Code 32)'. Question: how can I get ... these devices to work again? I have uninstalled them and restarted the computer to let it find new drivers but that didn't work. I have scanned my PC for viruses and am clean. I have also researched this topic in Google and found a post which states that this error message can appear if you have Roxio Easy CD Creator (which I do). The post suggested a ... (view more)

Seek time is one of the several delays associated with reading or writing data on a computer's disk drive. In order to read or write data in a particular place on the disk, the read/write head of the disk needs to be moved to the correct place (just ... as to play a particular song on a cassette of recorded music, the tape needs to be wound to the right place). This process is known as "seeking", and the time it takes for the head to move to the right place is the "seek time". Seek time for a given disk varies depending on how far the head's destination is from its origin at the time of each read ... (view more)

Synopsis: Take full control of your PC! Undo Delete allows you to restore lost or accidentally deleted data in only a few seconds -- without the need to understand complexities of the Windows File System. Undo Delete helps you browse the content of ... your disk like you do it in Windows Explorer; restore full branch of folders containing selected files, or entire folders. Supports all Microsoft Windows file systems (FAT, FAT32, NTFS) for hard drives and floppy drives, memory drivers, and more! Undo Delete: Screenshots Click to view: Page 1 | Page 2. Undo Delete: Features Recovery from broken or ... (view more)

Last month, I emphasized the importance of backing up files in my review of Eazy Backup. Eazy Backup Review Even with regular backups, files can still get lost or deleted accidentally, especially when they are stored on the Compact Flash or Secure ... Digital cards commonly used in digital cameras. Fortunately, Recover represents an affordable solution for restoring files when they are unintentionally deleted from your system. What is Recover? Recover is a utility for recovering deleted files and files missing due to disk failure from FAT 12, FAT 16, and FAT 32* formatted drives. Side Note: FAT ... (view more)

This article is a bit technical and relies on know-how from a previous article I've written about RAID. In brief, the word 'RAID' is a techy-term which stands for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks. A hard disk array is simply a ... bunch of hard drives chained together. Benefits of using RAID are generally two-fold, and include: increased file read / write performance (known as RAID-0), and data redundancy for backup purposes (known as RAID-1). I've previously written an article about RAID if you would like to read up on it . It is very simplistic and explains RAID essentials ... (view more)

Have you ever had a RAID before? RAID is a technology used to increase hard drive performance and fault-tolerance. What is fault-tolerance? The hard drive inside your computer is responsible for storing programs and user data. RAID performance ... refers to the time that it takes the hard drive to read and write information; fault-tolerance deals with the means to protect data stored on the hard drive. RAID is an acronym which stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks. Generally speaking, the word 'Array' is a techy-term which represents related information formed in a ... (view more)

A CD is an acronym for Compact Disc. It can refer to any media type which is based on CD technology. For example, a CD can be a computer disc, a music disc, or a video CD. Each CD standard is defined by ISSO-9660, a model used by the International ... Standards Organization. Because there are so many different CD formats, there are a number of books describing certain formats and specifications for each type. For example, the ISSO-9660 Red Book defines standards that all devices which play music CDs must follow for 100% compatibility. Here is a quick run-down about ISSO-9660 standards (adapted ... (view more)