In computer news this week, 05/15/2002

Your hard disk is the most important part of your computer, and a golden oldey utility named Spinrite might be the best friend your hard disk ever had ...

The first personal computers such as the Altair had no permanent storage at all. When you turned an Altair off, you lost everything you had stored in its memory, which wasn't much to begin with. One of the first pc's I had I used with a tape cassette recorder to load programs and store data, having to adjust the volume and tone controls a lot to make things work.

The early generation of pc's in the late 1970's all used floppy disks for storage. It wasn't until the early 1980's when the first pc hard disks appeared, using a technology called Winchester developed by IBM. The earliest pc hard disks were 5 - 10 megabytes in size, and cost thousands of dollars.

Ever since hard disks were invented, hard disks have failed pc users, and the most important thing you need to do is to back up your data regularly, and try to do some preventive maintenance on your own hard disk, just as you would to your car. In the pc world, devices are often rated with the term MTBF - mean time before failure. Hard disks are all rated at an estimated number of hours between failure, and a hard disk is one of the few continuously moving parts in your computer.

There is really only one utility - a golden oldie named Spinrite http://www.grc.com/ - which has been around since the late 1980's - which can physically detect and repair errors. Windows itself and other manufacturers have utilities which do housekeeping tasks, but Spinrite alone can actually detect potential hard disk failure and fix many of the problems.

Spinrite 1.0 was phenomenal - it could actually do a lowlevel reformat of your hard disk without destroying data, and speed up the performance of your pc. Spinrite evolved over the years to handle bigger sizes and different types of hard disks, and today Spinrite version 5.0 is designed for today's generation of hardware and windows operating systems, including zip drives.

In brief , Spinrite prevents your hard disk from crashing, by working its magic behind the scenes, doing periodic maintenance and repairs. If you have never used Spinrite and have a hard disk crash, Spinrite may be able to totally repair the damage and recover your data.

Spinrite's unique technology, written by Steve Gibson, does several low level repair and maintenance functions that no built-in windows utility such as Scandisk can do, nor is there any other product like it in the marketplace.

Nothing protects you more than a complete backup of your system, done periodically on different sets of backup medium, done on a regulary scheduled basis.

In addition to this, the use of Spinrite can keep your hard disk in most efficient operating condition and prevent disasters. This program has received excellent reviews and awards from major reviewers, including PC magazine, and has also been a Raw Bytes perennial favorite, but most importantly the real raves about it are from its user base

You can see a detailed description of Spinrite at www.grc.com and also purchase it online for $ 89.00. At this website you will also find other interesting free products for download, and many excellent articles on internet security.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

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