dear hardware club members, heres the last of the hard disk myth series sorr piyush for not answering ur query, ill do it soon ///////////////////////////////////////////// Myth 11:The head actuators are powered by a motor that can fail due to excessive use Truth:Current head actuators are actually not powered by any motor . Yes ,in the past head actuators were powered by a stepper motor.But current head actuators use the voice coil mechanism which uses electro magnetic force to move the heads. So if the head actuators are not powered by any mechanical motor,how can "its motor" fail? .................................... Myth 12:Frequent parking of the read/write heads will make the head actuator's motor fail earlier Truth:See Myth 11 regarding the actuator's motor. In addition ,please note that head parking in current hard disks occurs automatically whenever power is cut or when the hard disk powers down .It is not an active process The head actuators actually have springs to keep them in place.When there is power ,the actuators are moved against the spring tension.When power is cut the actuators automatically retract .Therefore even if head actuators were powered by a motor,Head parking will never cause that motor to fail ........................................ Myth 13:The hard disk only spins up when it needs to read or write data .It spins down when it is idle Truth:Actually the platters are kept spinning all the time,unless you have set it to spin down to save power after some idle time ............................................... Myth 14:It is better to spin down the hard disk whenever you can to reduce stress on the spindle motor Truth:Normally the platters are spun up at start up and kept spinning after that .The spinning up process is the most taxing part on the hard disk's spindle motor .Maintaining the spindle speed requires a lot less effort If the platters have spun down and you need to read/write something on the platters ,you will need to spin up the platters to full speed before you can read or write. Therefore,it is better to keep the hard disk spinning for better performance and to reduce stress on the spindle motor ........................... Myth 15:Sudden power cuts can cause bad sectors! Truth:Bad sectors are not caused by shutting off your computer suddenly It used to be in the case in the old,OLD days when you had to park the hard disk heads before you turned off your computer .These days ,the voice coil actuators will automatically park the read/write heads whenever power to the hard disk is cut off. Therefore ,there is no risk of any head crashes that can create bad sectors. ............................... Myth 16:Some bad sectors are "virtual" bad sectors that can be repaired by formatting the hard disk . Truth:There are also no such things as virtual bad sectors and physical badsectors A bad sector is a sector that cannot be written to or read from properly.It can be due to an eroded media or direct physical damage to the media. It cannot be repaired by any software and formatting will not restore it. ................................... Myth 17:There is nothing to worry about bad sectors because you can "erase" them by formatting the hard disk. Truth:True,low level formatting can replace bad sectors with good sectors on the spare tracks that are part of every hard disk. However ,performance suffers because the heads have to seek to the spare tracks.In addition ,there are only a limited number of spare sectors available on any hard disk. Finally bad sectors are a sign that something is wrong with the hard disk .Even if it was due to a single head crash ,that traumatic event would have created debris within the platter compartment and a damaged head.The debris can gradually cause scratches and erosions on other parts of the platter while a damaged head will not be aerodynamically stable and will be more likely to crash in the future. In other words ,if you have critical data,it would be a smart thing to back up your data and replace the hard disk when you detecting bad sectors.The hard disk may go on for a long time without more bad sectors appearing but the risk of it dying is real and should not be ignored. ....................................... Myth 18:You must format your hard disk every <insert duration of choice>to improve performance. Truth:This is yet another common fallacy.Formatting your hard disk regularly will NOT improve your hard disk's performance. If you notice a significant degradation in your hard disk's performance after several months ,this is because the data in the hard disk has become so fragmented that the read/write heads have to seek all over the hard disk while reading or writing data . Try defragmenting your hard disk ,instead of simply formatting it. .................... Myth 19:The hard disk can only be installed in the horizontal position Truth:Hard disks can be installed in any position-horizontal,vertical,even upside down!. .............................. Myth 20:If you want to use a hard disk in the vertical position ,you must first reformat it in the vertical position. Truth:Hard disks will work in any position .You do NOT need to reformat it before using it in vertical position or even upside down . ............................. THE AUTHOR IS 4TH YEAR GRADUATE STUDENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail