July 31st, 2010

The hard drive on your computer system can crash at any time and usually without warning. And when it does crash you can lose your information and data forever. But do you have to? The best precaution is to always backup this necessary information. Sometimes the computer crash does not lose every single file. If this is the situation, you can easily perform a system and data recovery if there are no warranties prohibiting you from conducting such a task. Often, though, you may need to consult a professional. However, there are some valuable tips that you can follow helping you solve the hassle about recovering data from when your computer crashes. Here are the steps:

Check For Other Problems

• As soon as the computer crashes remove the hard drive immediately
• Plug it into a different computer that you know is working properly
• You need to check to see if the motherboard may possibly be the problem causing the crash
• If you determine that the motherboard is causing the problem, you need to know that you must be backing up your data periodically

Freeze Your Hard Drive

If the solution for recovering your data escapes you, it is highly recommended that you freeze your hard drive.

• Place the damaged drive in a plastic bag that is manufactured for freezer use. It has been proven in the past that freezing the hard drive that time might help to revive one that has stalled for a least a short period of time if not longer
• Make sure the bag is completely airtight so does not allow any condensation rise could still do form inside
• Allow up to three hours freezing time because this will be enough
• Once you have had the hard drive freezing for up to three hours, replacing the computer. You may want to keep some dry ice nearby to keep it cool for a longer period of time
• If chilling the hard drive shocks it back into working. Immediately transfer all necessary data onto an external drive or USB flash drive
• Always remember that the hard drive on a computer laptop can crash at any moment, so it is also extremely wise and prudent to always backup your documents and files an intelligent manner

If none of the action you take helps, you will definitely need to seek professional assistance.

Read more tips on recovering important files at http://www.datarecoveryremedies.com, including our wildly popular article data recovery hardware.

Author: Wes B Wayne
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Electrical Pressure Cooker Online

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

Computer Disk Drive Maintenance: 5 Tips to Improve Disk Performance and help prevent your computer running slow.

Your Computer’s Hard Drive is possibly the most important part of your PC. It not only holds the Operating System, but also your important personal files and all those irreplaceable Digital Photo’s. What would happen if it failed? A little maintenance, now and then, will not only improve the performance of your Disk drive, and your slow computer, but could possibly also identify any problems that are developing, so you can take action before it is too late.

When was the last time you did a Back-up of your hard drive? You should consider doing one, then if a disaster strikes your Computer, you will have a back up of all your files and Photo’s. Back up to an external media for safety. An External Hard drive is the easiest method for a full back up. If you just want to back up your Pictures and personal files, CD’s may be a better option or a Flash Drive.

5 Tips:

* Defragment your main drive (usually ‘C’) once a month
* Run an Anti-Spyware program, once a week.
* Run a Full System scan with your Anti-virus, once a week.
* Run the Disc Clean Up, System tool, once a month.
* Take a load off; Copy last year’s Pictures to CD, make two or more copies for safety, then delete them from your Computer. Do the same with some of your Music Files.

Regular maintenance will improve the performance of your Disk drive and will help to speed up your computer.

David Snowdon has been working with Computers since 1980. He is a published writer and author of many PC articles LOW VIRTUAL MEMORY

Author: David Snowdon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Advice on AdSense

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

Several computer hard drives contain read/write heads and servo head mounted for concurrent movement by the actuator arm in response to the servo signal from server head. In such drives the positions of read/write heads are separately adjustable with respect to servo head. The complete performance and stability of these drives depend upon the head alignment system. If anything goes wrong with it, read/write heads can not access data from the disk platters and critical data loss occurs. In order to overcome these issues, you are required to opt for Hard Drive Recovery solutions.

These hard drives include a system for specifying any misalignment of individual read/write head as the head produces cyclic position indication in response to the position signs that are pre-recorded on the alignment tracks of the alignment disk. Every cycle of the cyclic position indication has first and second segments with negative and positive peak amplitudes. These negative and positive peak amplitudes of first and second segments become equal when a particular head comes in registry with corresponding alignment track.

These drives also include a peak detector circuitry that has four peak detectors, connected to four output circuits for getting the circuitry to be independently gated by the respective ones of four gating signals.
This arrangement of the circuits, detectors, read/write heads, servo head and the head alignment is considered as a reliable array to provide better performance and better safety of your critical data. All read/write heads are managed and controlled by a common assembly known as head alignment.

For proper working of all the heads and hard drives, it is required to have a functioning head assembly. Any misalignment to it might cause head crash and critical data loss situations. In such situations, you should not attempt any recovery by yourself to retrieve the lost data. It might cause further damage and permanent data loss.

Data Recovery in such situations is possible with the help of personalized and sophisticated Hard Drive Recovery service. It is technical assistance that is delivered by experienced professionals in safe and sterile lab environment of Clean Rooms. The experts are capable of repairing and restoring all damaged hard drive components and salvage lost files from it.

The file recovery service is provided under the controlled environment of Class-100 Clean Rooms by highly experienced recovery professionals. The recovery service is available for Server, RAID, NAS, SAN and laptop storage media as hard drives (SCSI, SATA, EIDE and IDE), SSDs (generally SATA) and USB flash drives.

k madhav is data recovery expert and doing research on hard drive recovery and data recovery

Author: K Madhav
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Canada duty

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

Almost every day, I work on computers where the hard drive fails. The failure often leaves the user in a state of panic. Why panic? They usually do not have their data backed-up. It is frustrating to me that they have no back-up of data when they have a CD/DVD burner, flash drive, or access to a server for storing data.

Why hard drives fail? The question is not really why, buy when. Hard drives are man-made and will fail at some point. Hard drives are susceptible to heat, humidity, dust, electromagnetism, static electricity, and rough handling.

Your data can become corrupt or lost due to a hard drive failure. Data can also become corrupt because of an improper shut down, poorly written software, viruses, and mechanical issues.

Myth: I will know when my hard drive is about to fail. Truth: Maybe not. There are systems like SMART that will give a warning before hard drive failure. However, even if you have SMART enabled in your BIOS, you may have an unexpected failure.

Your system may give you some signs that the hard drive is about to fail. For example: unusual hard drive noises, unexpected shut downs, BSOD (blue screen of death), error messages, files/data disappear, and file folder name changes.

What to do if you receive any signs of failure? If you hear unusual noises, shut the system down immediately. Turning off the system may allow any remaining life in the drive to be used for backing up data. In case of other signs: Back up your data!

Author of http://www.simplepctalk.com blog. James Owens has over 18 years experience with computers. He holds a BS in Computer Studies from University of Maryland UC and is currently employed by a major university in Indiana as a PC Technician and Tier I & II help desk support.

Author: James Owens
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Excise Tax

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

The crash of a hard drive can be a devastating loss for businesses and individuals alike. From important customer account information to cherished family photos the information contained on your computer’s drive is often vital and irreplaceable. But the blue screen of death does not have to mean that the files on a computer are gone for good. Before having an “Office Space” moment and bashing your computer into bits, there are steps you can try to recover the vital info.

The first recommended step to a blue screen failure of your PC is to make sure the hard drive is, in fact, the problem. If any new hardware has been installed unplug the devices and restart the computer. If it starts up normally then the problem is with the new hardware. If not, try to reboot the computer and start Windows in Safe Mode. This is done by pressing the F8 key when Windows is booting up. If you are able to reach the Windows log-in screen the problem is most likely software related, rather than a defective hard drive. It is recommended at this point to go ahead and back-up your important files before proceeding. Two things to try to repair a malfunctioning operating system are System Restore (reverts the system settings back to a previous successful boot) or a re-install. When reinstalling you can sometimes preserve your file using the Windows Recovery Console.

Should you be unable to get into Windows at all, there are still several ways in which you may be able to retrieve precious data. The first thing to try is resetting the drive. Unplug all cables from the computer and open up the case. The hard drive will be installed with four screws and looks vaguely like an 8-track tape. It will have two cables plugged into it: the power cable and either IDE or Sata connectors. Check to make sure all cables are firmly seated into the appropriate jacks. Sometimes the motherboard SATA or IDE slot can be bad so it’s a good idea, before reassembling the computer, to switch the cable from one slot to the other ( i.e.IDE 0 to IDE 1). If after reassembling the computer the problem still exists, the hard drive is likely defective.

The next step is to try a data recovery program. There are a number of other programs as well, but Tokiwa’s program can be downloaded to and run from a flash drive, whereas most of the others would require the computer to have a second drive with an OS installed to run. Another option is to remove the it and install it as a second on another computer. If these solutions prove unsuccessful, the problem is likely a mechanical failure in the hard drive and the expertise of a professional may be the only option. Your local computer repairman may offer hard drive recovery services, or, you can send the drive to another data recovery company for evaluation, after which they may be able to retrieve the desired data. This is an expensive service, however, with the evaluation costing about $100 and recovery costing anywhere from $200 – $600 based on the amount of data and the labor required.

Jeff Waters is an expert on computer repair & data recovery. He currently resides in San Diego.

Author: Jeff Waters
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Import duty tariff

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

As time passes by and Moore’s Law of expanding technology continually affects the information technology world, the capacity at which our computers can store data has increased a thousand-fold.

If you have been in the information technology industry ever since during heyday of the early 90’s, you remember well how big a 25-megabyte hard disc might look like — nearly as big as half a standard oil barrel. For 21st century folks like us, a hard drive the size of which you can hide in is like a really bad joke. We treat it as such because currently, we normally store hundreds of videos and thousands of songs in compact memory cards, miniature hard drives, and cute-looking servers no larger than the size of our cupboard.

In the past, you have to lug around machinery to transfer large bunches of data, and even several years ago, we had to carry stacks of compact disks to share information. Now we carry around entire programs, databases, and multimedia files in our flash drives which we attach to our key holders and stuff in our pockets.

Besides, we also have external hard disk drives (HDD). Hard disk drives are still the mainstays of computer data storage. However there are so-called external hard disk drives that can be attached to the computer using certain ports. An external HDD is extremely useful for transferring large amounts of information between computers. Popular interfaces that enable hard drives to connect to almost any computer include, USB, FireWire, eSATA, and Ethernet.

For all its stability and robustness, human errors still make their mark in data keeping. There are and will be times that we will inadvertently erase data on an external hard disk drive, and then cringe that we have just deleted files that can never be brought back. However, external hard drive data recovery is quite easy to do and inexpensive if you have got the right resources.

- Download from the Internet a file recovery program. There are free software available on the Internet, but if you want the better ones, you can buy them online.
- Install them on your personal computer.
- Open the program and select the drive letter that designates your attached external hard drive.
- Run the scan. How long the scan and the retrieval process may take depends on the size of your hard disk.

Following these steps will increases the chances of successfully performing external hard drive data recovery.

External Hard Drive Data Recovery is easy to do with Data Recovery Software. If you Scan Your Computer it will detect and recover all the accidentally deleted, lost digital photos, mp3 and video files from External Hard Drive or other data storage devices.

Author: Logan Yanany
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
News of Solar Power and Alternative Engery

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

My hard drive crashed and I was looking to see if I could get my data back after a number of calls to local companies with some really hectic prices. I decided to see if I could do it myself, I searched the internet and found lots of guides and tools most of them having a price tag attached. I decided to give it a try and sadly to my disappointment I was not able to recover the important data I was looking for, having paid for the software I decided to test it out on other drives and wow I recovered more than I could imagine and having done this for other people I got the opportunity to recover my cost and make a profit.

If you are looking to recover data from a drive whether it has been accidentally deleted, formatted or just as usual crashed. You can recover your data for free with a little bit of effort or with software available over the internet. Well that said it will only work if your hard drive still spins and you don’t have physical damage to the disk itself otherwise you are looking at clean room data recovery where the expense can you set back an arm and a leg.

Recover your data with little or no cost involved

If you need to recover data from a crashed operating system i.e. if you are unable to log into windows or get the blue screen of “death” then there is a good chance that you can remove your hard drive and put it into another computer and simply copy over the files you need. It is best to get yourself and external hard drive case that will fit your type of hard drive i.e. 2.5″ for laptops and 3.5″ for Desktop pc’s also you need to make sure it has the correct connectors i.e. sata, ide, scsi etc. The drive will show as an external drive allowing you full access with the exception of the operating system files in most cases which you don’t need.

Using software to recover your data

If you need to recover deleted items or if you formatted your drive by mistake or simply unable to retrieve your data using the above method, you can always look at software to help you recover your data. Most software applications will allow you to recover from a variety of devices including hard drives, USB flash drives, Micro sd cards etc. So if you have a drive you need to recover data from stop using it the more you use it the less chance of recovery. I have used a few tools and experience has proven that you get what you pay for. Some of the tools you can try offer a free scan so you can test to see if you can recover the data before you pay for it.

Visit http://www.pcrecovery.co.za. Having problems, need help, get in touch and I will help where I can.

Author: Ebrahim Jawoodeen
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
US Dollar credit card

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

In recent years, there have been numerous reports of confidential data being exposed through lost USB drives. These reports have brought the problem of USB security to light. As common portable storage device users, we are gradually aware of the importance to enhance USB security. USB Encryption software which can allow us to lock USB drive with password is one of the best options. It can prevent sensitive information on it from getting into the wrong hands even he gets physical access to our devices.

Following I will introduce you 3 Free USB encryption software.

Truecrypt

TrueCrypt is open-source disk encryption software. It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk, or an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as memory stick, floppy disk, etc. AES-256, Blowfish (448-bit key), CAST5, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish are the encryption algorithms it uses to secure data.

Truecrypt is the most popular free encryption software. To lock USB stick with this freeware, you need to take some time to understand how it works firstly. The problem with Truecrypt for your encryption is that you need to have administrator privileges on the computer in which you’re plugging your locked device into.

FreeOTFE

FreeOTFE is a free encryption program that can be used for USB stick and PCs. With this encryption application, you can create encrypted volumes, virtual disks or entire partitions using AES, Blowfish, Serpent, Twofish encryption algorithms. These disks operate exactly like a normal disk, with the exception that anything written to one of them is transparently, and securely, encrypted before being stored on your computer’s hard drive.

Rohos Mini Drive

Rohos Mini Drive is a free program that allows you to create an encrypted partition on the USB flash drive. The software doesn’t require administrator privileges to open the encrypted USB drive partition on a guest computer. Basically, Rohos Mini Drive is good free encryption software to lock USB drive. One of the weak points is that its encryption size is limited to 2 GB. You cannot encrypt a partition of more than 2 GB.

I believe that all these free USB encryption software can be helpful. But when you want portable and easy-to-use encryption software or just a commercial one with strong encryption, I personally recommend you to try Wondershare USB Drive Encryption.

Wondershare USB Drive Encryption is a professional USB encryption tool to lock USB drives and other portable storage devices with password so as to protect your confidential data. Its US military-level 256-bit AES encryption can guarantee the highest security for your business and personal data. To protect USB drive with it, just create a password protected secure area in 2 simple steps, and then drag and drop files you want to protect into it. The secure area can be made hidden to get more protection. This USB encryption software is portable, and you can view your files on the protected USB drive in any computer without USB Drive Encryption.

We cannot assure that we’ll never suffer the incidents about lost USB stick in our life, but being prepared and protecting USB drive in advance can help prevent our confidential data from being vulnerable. Hope that with all these top free encryption software, everyone will be no longer to worry about data exposure even if our device is misplaced, lost or stolen.

The author is an expert of data tools who talks a lot about data recovery and data encryption tools. http://www.disk-utilities.com/usb-encryption/top-3-free-usb-encryption-software-to-lock-usb-drive.html

Author: Mary Guo
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Creditcard Currency Conversion Fee

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

When making a purchase many people don’t consider the impact that can be made to laptop performance by the hard drive. Most consumers don’t know to look beyond the standard configuration when buying a laptop and often miss out on great opportunities for performance enhancements.
The most important factor to consider about the hard drive is the speed of the drive. Since hard disks are comprised of spinning discs, you need to look at how fast they spin. The spin speed is measured in RPMs, which stands for revolutions per minute. The most commonly available spin speeds are 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM. The speed you will need depends on how you will use your laptop. If you do graphic design or play cutting edge video games, you should make sure your laptop is equipped with a 7200 RPM drive. If you primarily will be using your laptop for word processing, using the Internet, or general business the standard 5400 RPM will suffice.

Another important factor impacting hard drive speed is its cache, which is the amount of memory within the hard drive. All lot of laptop manufacturers don’t specify the amount of cache a drive has, even though it can vary from 2MB to 32MB. The performance of the drive improves as the amount of cache increases.

The hard disks that laptops have are smaller than desktop disks. Whereas the desktop hard disks are 3.5″, laptop drives are 2.5″ wide. Solid state drives or SSDs are becoming more frequently used. Due to the high price of these drives at present, they are still not accessible to most people. SSDs have an advantage over traditional hard drives because they lack moving parts. This makes them more resilient and less likely to fail. The technology for which these drives are based on is exactly the same technology as you would find in USB flash drives and camera memory cards.

If you’d like more information on buying a laptop hard drive, feel free to look at the information available at http://www.harddriveforlaptop.org.

Author: Matt V Clark
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Anti-angiogenic Food

Posted in Computers

July 31st, 2010

There are various factors that have to be considered before you make a decision on which External drive to buy, let us have a look at these factors….

Storage Capacity

By far the most important consideration is the size of the External Hard Drive, the size you choose will depend on the amount of data you intend to store, for example if all you are storing is documents then you probably will not need a big drive, a small USB flash drive will suffice, if on the other hand you intend to store a lot of graphics, pictures, videos, music files, etc you would be better off choosing External drives with capacity in the ranges of 500GB to 2 Terabytes.

Security

The easiest and cheapest security can be implemented through the Computers operating system so if you are not too particular about protecting your files then you do not need to go for anything flashy, however there are various security options when it comes to External Hard drives:

1) Software: There are many Third Party Software programs that password protect your hard drive and encrypt the data as well – example is StorageCrypt 3, a lot of External Hard drives come with their own in built encryption and password protection capability

2) Fingerprint biometric access: Some Manufacturers have designed External Hard drives with built in biometric fingerprint access technology, an example of such a drive is the Aegis Bio which uses a fingerprint biometric sensor.

Data Transfer Speed

Speed may be an important factor for some users for example if you are capturing video you would probably need a faster data transfer rate due to the large size of the files as opposed to someone who is just transferring document files.There are two determinants of speed that have to be considered:

1)The data transfer rate of the Hard drive as specified by the Manufacturer, this is measured in Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), the higher the value the faster the device. 5400, 7200 or 10,000 RPM are the more common speeds available.

2) The interface used by the Hard drive to connect to and from Computers. Some of the common interfaces and their corresponding transfer speeds are:

USB 1.1 1.5 MB/s (Megabytes per second)

USB 2.0 60 MB/s

USB 3.0 625 MB/s

FireWire (IEEE 1394) 100 12.288 MB/s

FireWire (IEEE 1394) 200 24.576 MB/s

FireWire (IEEE 1394) 400 49.152 MB/s

FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 800 98.304 MB/s

FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 1600 196.6 MB/s

eSATA 3 GB/s

eSATA II 6 GB/s

Size and Durability

Some people prefer small and portable devices, and they do not come any smaller than a USB pen. USB pens although small and portable are limited in size having said that you can get USB pens of up to 256GB e.g. Kingston DataTraveler 310. There are larger and very sleek and portable models which are useful for those who want to copy a few files from one computer to another, there are also some very strong and durable models with tough protective cases or shock resistant rubber protectors to protect the device from accidental drops. There are also available big and heavy devices that can store a large amount of data i.e Terabytes they are useful for users who want a dedicated data storage device to store there data and have no intention of carrying the device about.

External Hard drives are pretty useful devices used to protect and secure data, there are many types available on the market and you should take your time to choose one that meets with your requirements.

Author: Olu Ogidi
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Benefits of electric pressure cooker

Posted in Computers