1
|
- Understanding and Supporting Hard Drives
|
2
|
- About hard drive technologies
- How communication with hard drive BIOS is accomplished
- How a hard drive is logically organized to hold data
- How to install a hard drive
- How to troubleshoot hard drives
|
3
|
- Technology of how the hard drive interfaces with the system
- Technology used within the hard drive to read and write data to the
drive
|
4
|
- EIDE (Enhanced Integrated Device Electronics) interface standard
- Used by most hard drives; also applies to other drives
- Complex method of organizing tracks and sectors on disks
- Other interface standards
|
5
|
- Define how hard drives and other drives relate to the system
- Drives other than hard drives can use EIDE if they follow ATAPI
(Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface)
- Specify data transfer speed more than any other single factor
- Most popular ANSI standard is Ultra ATA/100
|
6
|
|
7
|
- Support two IDE connections, a primary and a secondary
- Each connection can support up to two IDE devices for a total of four
devices on a system
- Possible configurations
- Primary IDE channel, master device
- Primary IDE channel, slave device
- Secondary IDE channel, master device
- Secondary IDE channel, slave device
|
8
|
|
9
|
- SCSI
- Second most popular interface
- IEEE 1394
- Uses serial transmission
- Popular for multimedia and home entertainment
- Also called FireWire or i.Link
- Fibre Channel
- For high-end systems with multiple hard drives
- Faster than SCSI, but expensive
|
10
|
- Platter(s) are stacked together and spin in unison
- Read/write heads are controlled by an actuator and move in unison across
disk surfaces as disks rotate on a spindle
- Require hard drive controller for instructions
|
11
|
|
12
|
- Most hard drives use IDE standards
- Use a varying number of sectors for each cylinder, depending on how
close the cylinder is to the outer edge
|
13
|
|
14
|
- Older MFM and RLL technologies
- Have 17 or 26 sectors per track over entire drive platter
- All tracks contain same number of bytes
- IDE drives use zone bit recording formatting system
- Number of sectors per track is not same throughout platter
- Tracks near center have smallest number of sectors per track
- OS cannot communicate with IDE drive by contacting hard drive
controller BIOS and using sector/track coordinates
|
15
|
|
16
|
|
17
|
- Track and sector markings are written on hard drive at the factory
- IDE drives cannot be low-level formatted as part of preventive
maintenance
- OS does high-level formatting by executing remainder of the format
process (creating boot sector, FAT, and root directory)
|
18
|
|
19
|
- With IDE drives, system BIOS and OS communicate with the hard drive
controller BIOS; only the hard drive controller BIOS deals with
physically locating data on the drive
|
20
|
|
21
|
- CHS (cylinder, head, sector) mode or normal mode for drives less than
528 MB
- Large mode or ECHS (extended CHS) for drives between 504 MB and 8.4 GB
- LBA (logical block addressing) mode for drives larger than 504 MB
- OS and software can bypass system BIOS and communicate directly with
controller BIOS using device drivers
|
22
|
- Let the BIOS see the drive as a smaller drive
- Upgrade the BIOS
- Upgrade entire motherboard
- Use software that interfaces between older BIOS and large-capacity drive
- Use adapter card that provides the BIOS to substitute for system BIOS
|
23
|
- Requirements to boot from hard drive and get to a command prompt:
- Drive must have track and sector markings written on it
- A file system must be installed
- Files needed to boot the PC must be copied to root directory of drive
|
24
|
- Low-level format
- Partition hard drive
- High-level format
|
25
|
- High-level divisions
- Partition table is 512 bytes long and occupies one sector
- Active partition
- Partition of hard drive used to boot OS
- Contains only a single logical drive (drive C)
- Always the first partition on the drive
|
26
|
|
27
|
- Further division of partitions (primary and extended)
- Have letters assigned to them
- Each has its own file system (eg, FAT16, VFAT, FAT32)
|
28
|
|
29
|
- Use multiple logical drives to optimize space and access time to the
drive
- The larger the drive, the larger the cluster size, and the more slack
or wasted space
- Goal is to use as few logical drives as possible and still keep cluster
size to a minimum
- Use Fdisk, Diskpart, or Disk Management to create logical drives
|
30
|
|
31
|
|
32
|
- When installing a new hard drive
- If existing hard drive is giving errors
- If you suspect a virus has attacked the drive
- To wipe hard drive clean and install new OS
|
33
|
- OS format for each logical drive creates:
- OS boot record
- FAT
- Root directory
|
34
|
|
35
|
|
36
|
- Set jumpers or DIP switches on drive; physically install drive inside
case; attach power cord and data cable
- Inform CMOS setup of new drive, or verify that autodetect correctly
detected the drive
- Use Fdisk utility to create partition(s) on drive; divide extended
partition into logical drives
- Use Format command to high-level format each logical drive
- Install OS and other software
|
37
|
- Read documentation
- Have a good bootable disk or Windows 9x rescue disk available
- Plan drive configuration
- Prepare work area and take precautions
|
38
|
|
39
|
|
40
|
|
41
|
|
42
|
|
43
|
|
44
|
|
45
|
|
46
|
|
47
|
|
48
|
|
49
|
|
50
|
|
51
|
|
52
|
|
53
|
|
54
|
|
55
|
|
56
|
|
57
|
- Use these commands:
- Format C:/S
- Format D:
- Format E:
|
58
|
- Boot from Windows setup CD and follow directions on screen to install
Windows on new drive
- Setup process partitions and formats new drive before it begins Windows
installation
|
59
|
- Back up data on the drive before you move it
- If BIOS on new computer does not let you access data on the drive, you
can partition and format the drive again, and then move the backed-up
data onto the newly formatted drive
- Don’t change options in setup unless you are sure of what you are doing
|
60
|
- Error messages
- Tools for troubleshooting and maintaining hard drive
- Solving common hard drive problems
- General troubleshooting guidelines
|
61
|
- Make backups and keep them current
- Run antivirus software regularly
- Defragment files; scan hard drive occasionally
- Don’t smoke around the hard drive
- Don’t leave PC turned off for weeks/months at a time
- High humidity can be dangerous for hard drives
- Be gentle with a hard drive
|
62
|
- Fdisk
- Format
- Defrag and Windows Disk Defragmenter to detect and repair fragmentation
- ScanDisk to correct cross-linked and lost clusters
|
63
|
|
64
|
|
65
|
|
66
|
|
67
|
- Describe/reproduce the problem?
- Computer recently moved?
- New hardware or software recently installed?
- Software recently reconfigured or upgraded?
- History of similar problems?
- Anyone else recently use the computer?
|
68
|
- Computer will not recognize newly installed hard drive
- Hardware problems
- Hard drive not found
- Invalid drive or drive specification
- Damaged boot record
- Damaged FAT or root directory or bad sectors
- Cannot boot from hard drive
- Drive retrieves and saves data slowly
|
69
|
- Before you call:
- Drive model and description
- Manufacturer and model of computer
- Exact wording of error message, if any
- Description of problem
- Hardware and software configuration for the system
|
70
|
- Hard drive technology
- Logical organization of a hard drive
- What to do when a hard drive fails or produces errors
- Importance of keeping good backups of the file system and data
- Troubleshooting hard drive installation and operation
|