hard disk

Bad things can happen to good data. Hard drives can crash. Memory cards can be formatted accidentally. CDs or DVDs on which important files are stored can become scratched and unreadable. But there are steps you can take to try to retrieve damaged data.

If I asked you the question: which part of your computer is the most fragile, what would you say?
What if I asked: which part is most important to you?

Often, the answer to both of these questions is your Hard Drive.

Your hard drive is likely one the most important things you own. It contains work data, school data, emails, photos, music, movies, tax information, etc… Incidentally, the hard drive is also one of only two moving components in your computer (the other being your optical drive). The following is a list of important maintenance and monitoring techniques you can use to maximize the life of your hard drive and prevent data loss.

Toshiba Corp. will start producing a 320G-byte hard-disk drive for laptop computers before the end of this year, the company said.

It is the first 2.5-inch drive to be announced at that capacity, with production to begin in the fourth quarter, according to Toshiba. Pricing was not announced.

The drive is one of a series of five that make up Toshiba's new MKxx52SX family of hard-disk drives. The 320G-byte model will contain two platters -- the circular disks on which data is recorded. Other drives in the range will offer between 80G bytes and 250G bytes of storage space. They will connect via a 3G bps (bits per second) serial ATA (SATA) interface.