Hard Disk

Computer users who like to acquire a lot of different software programs quickly learn that there is no such thing as a hard disk that is too big or too fast. It is not unusual to find software that needs five to 10 megabytes of storage on your disk, especially if any graphic or type font files are involved.

Western Digital Corp. won European Union approval for its purchase of Hitachi Ltd.'s Viviti storage business after it agreed to sell off some disk drive production to eliminate antitrust concerns. Western Digital has agreed to sell "essential production assets" for 3.5-inch hard disk drives, including a production plant and intellectual property rights linked to the business, the European Commission said Wednesday. "Hard disk drives are a key component of computers and other sophisticated electronic devices as they are used to store a growing bulk of data in the digital economy," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in the statement.

Last week, my colleague, Richard O'Reilly, wrote about software to compress files on your hard disk. Compression software, as he pointed out, is a relatively inexpensive way to increase the amount of data you can store on your hard disk. However, it's not the best solution in all cases. Compression software uses up random access memory, which may not be available if you use other memory resident software. It can also slow down the drive's performance.

Western Digital Corp., a familiar name in the computer industry, is poised to get a bit more familiar with the $4.3-billion acquisition of Hitachi Ltd.'s data storage business. Computer hard drives made by the Irvine company would make up more than half of the global market share, easily outpacing Seagate Technology, its longtime rival for the market leader position. Analysts said the deal is an effort by Western Digital to solidify its position at a time when sales of tablet computers and flash memory drives are surging while hard drives are sliding.

Imagine a stack of 100,000 double-spaced, typewritten pages--enough paper to make a stack 33 feet tall--shrunk to one square inch. International Business Machines Corp. said Wednesday that it has achieved that condensing job by storing, for the first time, a billion bits of information on a square inch of a magnetic hard disk. The record data density is 15 to 30 times greater than that of current hard-disk magnetic devices, IBM said.

The hard disk is the most important component of a business personal computer. It lets you store vast amounts of data and get access to it quickly. Unfortunately, the hard disk also is the most trouble-prone piece of a computer. Many service technicians say it is not a question of whether, but when, a hard disk will fail. Until now, copying data to floppy disks or tape drives has been the only protection against the disaster of a hard-disk failure.

Hard disk drives are pretty reliable, generally lasting at least five years. But as with any machinery, they need upkeep. A tuneup of your hard disk may make programs work a bit faster, prevent you from saving files on a bad part of the hard disk and limit the number of software program faults that are not your fault. Start your tuneup with the right software, specifically disk-scanning and repair software.

Western Digital Corp. won European Union approval for its purchase of Hitachi Ltd.'s Viviti storage business after it agreed to sell off some disk drive production to eliminate antitrust concerns. Western Digital has agreed to sell "essential production assets" for 3.5-inch hard disk drives, including a production plant and intellectual property rights linked to the business, the European Commission said Wednesday. "Hard disk drives are a key component of computers and other sophisticated electronic devices as they are used to store a growing bulk of data in the digital economy," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in the statement.

CMS Enhancements Inc. has introduced several hard disk storage drives for personal and portable computers made by Commodore International. The Tustin company said it is currently offering two hard disk drives with 20 megabytes and 40 megabytes of memory for Commodore machines that are compatible with International Business Machines Corp. personal computers. This fall, the company said, it will offer four additional disk drives for the Commodore Amiga model. "We recognize Commodore as an important manufacturer in the personal computer market," said John Woodmansee, a CMS product manager.

Just the thought of a hard disk "crash" is enough to send shivers down the spine of many computer users. Imagine the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize that you just lost all your software and data. I had planned to write a review of a couple of the better hard disk backup programs for the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh, but a recent experience convinced me to write it sooner rather than later.

It took Rio Audio just three weeks this spring to go into bankruptcy protection, cut its ties to floundering former owner Sonicblue Inc. and emerge as part of Tokyo's D&M Holdings Inc. Now, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of portable digital music players is spending the next three weeks replacing its entire product line in a bold bid to regain the dominance it squandered during Sonicblue's financial troubles. The company has a long way to go.

If your hard drive is close to capacity, it's time to add a new one. First, determine whether your current drive uses an IDE/AT interface or an SCSI connection. When you start your computer, you might see a reference to an SCSI device. Otherwise, your current drive probably uses an IDE or AT interface. AT drives are faster than the older IDE drives, but they work with IDE drives. Before you start, back up data, then power down and unplug the computer.

January is when lots of people join health clubs and go on diets, and it's as good a time as any to take stock of your computer systems to see what needs to be replaced, upgraded or put on a fitness program. With PC prices falling through the floor and new models arriving every month, it's tempting to replace your equipment with the latest and greatest. It might make more sense instead to revitalize some of your current equipment for today's tasks.

Unless you've been asleep for the last year or so, you probably already know that it's relatively easy to surf through millions of pages on the World Wide Web. What you might not realize is that it's not all that hard to publish your own information. Setting up and maintaining a Web site is easier and cheaper than you might think. Before you take the plunge, be aware that anything you put on the World Wide Web is there for the world to see.

When you erase files from your hard disk, the files go straight into the intergalactic bit bucket, leaving not a trace, right? Wrong. Whether it's your child's school report or a confidential memo deleted accidentally or purposely, many files can be restored in seconds--for better and for worse. To understand how deleted files can easily be recovered, you have to know a little about the way files are saved on a hard disk.

In October 1996, Microsoft released a Windows 95 upgrade without any of the company's traditional product release fanfare. There were no pricey television commercials or targeted public relations campaigns touting the product (most often called Original Equipment Manufacturers' Service Release Two, or OSR2 for short). In fact, Microsoft says you can't even get OSR2 unless you purchase a new PC that has it preloaded. But if you partition your hard disk, you may need it.

Upgrading your old DOS operating system to Microsoft Corp.'s new MS-DOS 5.0 can be a quick and easy task--unless you have a hard disk larger than 32 megabytes. One of the many advantages of DOS 5.0 over its most popular predecessor, DOS 3.3, is the ability to have hard disk partitions larger than 32 megabytes of storage space. With the old DOS, you had to divide larger hard disks into multiple partitions, no larger than 32 megabytes, and named Drives C, D, E and so on.

In October 1996, Microsoft released a Windows 95 upgrade without any of the company's traditional product release fanfare. There were no pricey television commercials or targeted public relations campaigns touting the product (most often called Original Equipment Manufacturers' Service Release Two, or OSR2 for short). In fact, Microsoft says you can't even get OSR2 unless you purchase a new PC that has it preloaded. But if you partition your hard disk, you may need it.

Hard disk drives are pretty reliable, generally lasting at least five years. But as with any machinery, they need upkeep. A tuneup of your hard disk may make programs work a bit faster, prevent you from saving files on a bad part of the hard disk and limit the number of software program faults that are not your fault. Start your tuneup with the right software, specifically disk-scanning and repair software.

The saddest day in the life of any computer user is the day the hard disk crashes. You're lucky if all it ruins is your whole day. It could ruin your whole company. If you've diligently backed up all your files on tape, or at least backed up your critical data files on diskette, you can probably recover with your most important programs and files restored. But if, like so many hapless computer users, you aren't backed up, you're out of luck.