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Hard Disk is the place where all the personal files, folders and operating system files are stored in; it consists of several physical cylinders (called Platters) with heads pointing on them (as shown in the picture), the cylinders spins and the hears moving over them to perform the read/write operations, its life time around 3-4 years. IBM invented the disk drive in 1956. The first disk drives were the size of two large refrigerators and held 5 MB. A hard disk from 1956. It stored a staggering 4.4M on 50 platters spinning at 1200 rpm (compared to 7,200 or 10,000 rpm today) Storage cost $10,000 per MB (so your 20G drive would have cost $200,000,000 back then!). Today it's about 50c per GIGABYTE (or .05c per MB) The platters of disks typically spin about 100 miles per hour. 1 GB of data is equivalent to 1,500 paperback novels. An areal density (i.e. how much data can be put into a given surface area of disk) of 1.44 billion bits per square inch is equivalent to 87 college textbooks (1 inch=25.4 mm). 5 GB is equivalent to 50 years of a typical daily newspaper, one million printed pages, and a stack of paper 62 storys tall.

HARD DISK BUSES

Enhanced IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics or EIDE) is the current standard for inexpensive, high performance disks in PCs. EIDE is also used interchangeably with the term 'ATA' (Advanced Technology Attachment). EIDE is a bus with a chipset controller and devices (like disks) which each have a controller to interface with the bus. The devices are typically disks, but CD-ROMs, DVD drives, CDRW drives, LS-120 or 240 drives, some tape drives, and other devices, use the EIDE interface. The EIDE chipset controller supports two EIDE buses (primary and secondary), each with a cable to which up to two devices can be connected. The two devices off a single EIDE cable should be the same speed. If a slower device is mixed with a faster device, then both devices will transfer at the slower speed. So don't put your hard disk and CD-ROM drive on the same EIDE cable! The ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) is a standard designed for devices such as CD-ROMs and tape drives that plug into an ordinary IDE port. The maximum cable length for IDE and EIDE is 45cm, so IDE devices must be mounted in PC cases. On each IDE connector, one IDE device is the master, and the other IDE device is the slave. The primary/secondary designation is determined by switch or jumper settings on each IDE device. A bootable IDE disk can be a master or a slave. EIDE disks transfer data in either PIO or DMA Programmed Input/Output (PIO) Processor handles data transfers PIO mode 3 with 11.1 MBps transfer rate PIO mode 4 with 16.6 MBps transfer rate Default mode for Windows 95

Direct Memory Access (DMA) DMA controller handles transfers Ultra DMA/33 with 33 MBps transfer rate ATA-66, ATA-5, Ultra DMA Mode 4 with 66 MBps rate ATA-100 or Ultra ATA/100 with 100 MBps rate DMA is the default mode for Windows 98, NT 4.0, and Windows 2000

IDE's traditional method of data transfer is PIO, but the introduction of faster buses has resulted in DMA becoming the faster transfer method. The data transfer mode that is used by the IDE disk subsystem depends on the IDE devices that are attached to the IDE cable. The mode chosen is always the best performing mode that is supported by both devices and is determined dynamically during POST (Power On Self Test). This means that when you attach a brand new PIO Mode 4-capable IDE device to the same cable as your old Mode 0 device, the new device will not work any better than Mode 0 (this is also true for DMA modes). In 1996 the Ultra DMA/33 interface protocol, doubled the burst transfer rate across the IDE interface from 16.6 to 33 MBps using DMA. To get Ultra DMA/33 performance, the disk and controller must both be compatible. In 1998 the ATA-5 (Ultra ATA/66, ATA-66, and Ultra DMA Mode 3 or 4) interface arrived, supporting up to 66 MBps transfers. It uses a 40-pin, 80-conductor cable instead of the previous 40-pin, 40-conductor cable to lower electromagnetic interference. In 2000, the ATA-100, ATA/100, or Ultra ATA/100 specification was released. It supports 100 MBps transfers through the IDE interface. It requires the same 40-pin 80-conductor cabling as ATA-66. It basically has the same features as ATA66. In 2005 Serial ATA (SATA), with a slim, narrow cable is replacing the old flat PATA ribbon cable.

"Serial ATA is a serial link between devices. Transfer rates for Serial ATA begin at 150 MBps(megabits per second, a measure of data transfer speed (a megabit is equal to one million bits)). One of the main design advantages of Serial ATA is that the thinner serial cables facilitate more efficient airflow inside a form factor and also allow for smaller chassis designs. In contrast, IDE cables used in parallel ATA systems are bulkier than Serial ATA cables and can only extend to 40cm long, while Serial ATA cables can extend up to one meter. Serial ATA supports all ATA and ATAPI devices."

1. The more time of usage the less life time, so in case if you dont use the computer for a long time dont leave it on but instead shut it down. 2. (In case you have a PC) Dont turn off the power from the main socket or take the main power cable out from the computer box (in case of a computer hang), instead keep on pressing the main power button (in front of the computer case) for 5 seconds then the computer will shut down automatically and safely. 3. Prevent vibration and always handle your PC case or Laptop so smoothly. 4. Dont perform normal format but instead use the fast format always. 5. Be sure to connect the power cable to a wall face plate socket that has a grounding connection port.

Whenever youre sensing the symptoms described below where these points should be happening at the same period of time: 1. Slow computer performance (not as usual and cannot be better even after formatting 2. You hear banging/scrapping sounds from your Hard Drive. 3. Sometimes if you get messages from the System telling you that a bad sector found (for more important notes about bad sectors click here). 4. Sometimes your computer start to hang (after checking your hardware performance and Windows files/drivers and after you solve all the problems it keeps on hanging).