HD Doctor Blog

Firmware is a type of software stored directly inside hardware components, such as hard disk drives or motherboards, that tells the hardware how to interact with your computer’s operating system. You would typically only need to upgrade your hard drive’s firmware if you installed a new motherboard or upgraded to a new operating system that the drive was not originally intended to interact with. Firmware upgrades are meant to be administered through a floppy disk, but with some extra work you can also apply them with a standard CD as well.

Note: Save a backup copy of each of your important files to an external source before attempting to update the firmware of your hard drive. If you stop…

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics)
A type of drive where the interface controller electronics are incorporated into the design of the hard drive rather than as a separate controller.

Index Pulse Signal
A digital pulse signal indicating the beginning of a disk revolution. An embedded servo pattern or other prerecorded information is present on the disk following index.

Initiator
A device in control of the SCSI bus that sends commands to a target. Most SCSI devices have a fixed role as an initiator or a target; however, some devices can assume both roles.

Initialization
See low-level formatting.

Input
The incoming data that the computer processes, such as commands issued by the user.

Input/output (I/O)
An…

If you’ve ever installed a hard drive, you may have noticed the green board on the bottom of the drive, and have probably made a few educated guesses as to its purpose and use.

The green board is known as the hard drive’s PCB, or Printed Circuit Board, and it’s one of the most complex and intriguing parts of a hard drive.

When hard drives fail, occasionally it’s due to a malfunction of the PCB board. Power surges can cause this type of a failure, as well as dust contamination and many other common computer problems.

Hard Drive PCB Failure Symptoms

Hard drive PCB failures usually render a drive unable to boot up. Depending on the brand and model…

Half-Duplex
A communications protocol that permits transmission in both directions but in only one direction at a time.

Half-height Drives
Standard 3.5-inch hard drives are available in heights of 1.0-inch and 1.6-inches. Half-height drives measure 1.6-inches in height.

Hard Disk
A mass storage device that transfers data between the computer’s memory and the disk storage media. Hard disks are rotating, rigid, magnetic storage disks.

Hard Drive
An electromechanical device used for information storage and retrieval, incorporating one or more rotating disks on which data is recorded, stored and read magnetically.

Hard Drive Industry
The combined manufacturers of hard drives. In the United States, the industry is led by IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, Quantum and Western Digital.…

Computer Forensics: Incident Response Essentials by Warren G. Kruse, Jay G. Heiser

Details:

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (October 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201707195
• ISBN-13: 978-0201707199
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Popular:

Description:

Computer security is a crucial aspect of modern information management, and one of the latest buzzwords is incident response–detecting and reacting to security breaches. Computer Forensics offers information professionals a disciplined approach to implementing a comprehensive incident-response plan, with a focus on being able to detect intruders, discover what damage they did, and hopefully find out who they are.

There is little…

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (December 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078214375X
• ISBN-13: 978-0782143751
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Popular:

Description:

At the heart of modern corporate crime and counter-terrorism investigations, computer forensics is now the fastest growing segment of IT and law enforcement. For everyone curious about this hot field, here is an in-depth introduction to the technological, social, and political issues at hand. Sybex’s JumpStart approach is ideal for those interested in computer forensics but not yet sure what it’s all about. It offers a complete overview of the basic skills and available certifications that can…

FAT (File Allocation Table)
A data table stored at the beginning of each partition on the disk that is used by the operating system to determine which sectors are allocated to each file and in what order.

Fdisk
A software utility used to partition a hard drive. This utility is included with DOS and Windows 95 operating systems.

Fetch
The process of retrieving data.

Fibre Channel (FC)
The general name given to an integrated set of standards being developed by an ANSI-approved X3 group. This set of standards defines new protocols for flexible information transfer. Fibre channel supports three topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and fabric.

Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)
A subset of fibre channel…