One of the primary responsibilities of PC technician is to manage hard disks; it entails installing disks into the computer system and configuring the system to recognize the newly added disks. You will discover the skills that you need for installing, configuring the system to recognize the newly added disks. We introduce you to a new world of terminology related to hard disk installation and configuration, along with other types of storage like CD-ROM and DVD. We also make sure that you understand the difference between IDE, SCSI and Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives. Before discussing the installation and configuration of IDE and SATA drives, it is important to cover some basic terminology surrounding hard drives.

Platters: A platter is a physical object inside the hard drive that is responsible for storing the data. A platter is similar to a record on an old record player, the main difference being that a hard disk has many platters, while a record player holds only one record at a time.

Tracks: Just as there are grooves, or tracks, on a music record, there are also tracks on each platter. These trackes are evenly spaced across the platter’s surface.

Sectores: The platter is divided into pie-shaped slices, called sectors, Now the confusing thing about sectors is that where a track intersects with a sector creates sectorblocks, also known as sectores! Each sector is 512 bytes in size.

Installing IDE – SATA hard drive:
We will give you an idea how to install an IDE or SATA hard drive. Because all hard drives are different. We present only the most popular solutions for installing hard drives.
First, you want to open up the casing of the computer and find an empty bay to mount the new hard disk into. if you are removing the old hard drive, you will be able to use the same bay. However, if you are adding a hard drive, you have to find an empty bay and mount the drive in place. Second, you slide the drive in the bay so that the power connector and ribbon cable connector are facing the motherboard. After you have mounted the drive in place, as a third step, connect the IDE connector on the motherboard to the IDE connector on the hard disk with a 40-wire IDE ribbon cable and then connect a power connector to the drive. The question is: How do you know which pin is pin 1? Hopefully, the manufacturer has indicated Pin 1 by placing a small (1) near it. if you look at the connector on the hard drive and on the motherboard, you may see a small (1) on one end of the connector. That’s where you need to place a (40) by Pin 40 instead of displaying where Pin 1 is, so watch for that as well. After you have connected the IDE ribbon cable, you want to give the hard disk power from the power supply so that you can run the motor in the drive.

Hard drive crashed or failed: The hard drive could fail at any time even if it a brand new one. Sometimes, the computer freezes or crashes at least one time a day. This crash could be the first sign that the hard drive will be failed soon. In this case, the first thing to do is “data back up“. the second sign, when Windows takes long time to load more than usual. The third sign, when you get the blue screen of death with error code shows on the screen. The blue screen of death is related to hard drive failure, memory, video card, motherboard or software problem.

A2Z PC services has provided these information to give you an idea about hard drive repair and data recovery. For more information, please visit our computer services page.

Computer Repair Toronto

No matter where you are in Toronto, computer repair services are not far away.  If you are unable to come to us, no problem, we will send a professional computer repair technician to fix the problem in your home or office anywhere in Toronto.

One Response to “Hard drive repair and installation”