Data Recovery Blog

The following procedure shows you how to perform a software update on your Maxtor Fusion. During the update process, the Maxtor Fusion will be unavailable to active users. Please notify these users before proceeding.

Download the FUSION-x.xx.pkg (where “x” equals the numbers for the update) file to your supported, Windows or Macintosh Client computer.
Launch the Fusion’s Web User Interface (Web UI). From the Login Page, login as admin and provide the admin password to authenticate.
From the admin’s home page, click Set Preferences.
From the Admin Applet, click SYSTEM SETTINGS.
The SYSTEM SETTINGS Applet opens. Click the Update button.
You will be prompted to choose an update file. Click the Browse button to locate and select the FUSION-x.xx.pkg (where “x” equals the numbers for the update) file located on your client.
Once selected, click the Update button.
A window opens informing you that the, “Update process has started”. This process will take approximately 5 minutes to complete and during this time, the Fusion will NOT be available to users. Click OK.
At this point the FUSION-x.xx.pkg (where “x” equals the numbers for the update) Update will be loaded to the Maxtor Fusion. When finished, a window opens informing you, “Update complete”. Click OK.
The software update is complete. You can now Logout of the Fusion’s Web UI.

Additional Information:

To confirm that the Update was successful:

Launch the Fusion’s Web User Interface (Web UI). From the Login Page, login as admin and provide the admin password to authenticate.
From the admin’s home page, click Set Preferences.
From the Admin Applet, click ABOUT.
The ABOUT Applet opens. In the upper-left corner of the Applet, you will see (for example if you loaded the FUSION-1.52.pkg):
Maxtor Fusion^TM
Software version FUSION – 1.52

Flash Video that shows you how to perform a Software Update on Your Maxtor Fusion.

Hard Disk Repair

Global Access File Size Limitations

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago12 years ago02 mins

This article provides comprehensive information about the file size limitation of the Global Access service.

The Global Access service limits file size to approximately 2.0 Gigabytes when uploading or downloading files to your Central Axis over the internet.

This built in file size limitation is in consideration of fairness to the rest of the users in the Global Access community.

The Central Axis server is certainly capable of storing files larger than 2.0 Gigabytes on your local network, but trying to transfer large files over the internet makes for a poor user experience.

Example: You’re at an internet café on a wireless connection thousands of miles away from your home, and the Global Access service. A common connection speed under these circumstances is 56 KiloBytes per second at best. It would take you 3 days, 13 hours, 13 minutes, to transfer a 2.0 GB file, if you were able to stay connected continuously.

Connection speed and download times will constantly vary depending upon distance from the server, current internet traffic, and how many Gateways, ISPs, Routers, and Switches, you have to pass through to connect to your Central Axis drive.

Internet traffic (rush hour) is generally highest in your area right after everybody gets home from work. This is the time of day everybody checks their email. If you are having trouble connecting, staying connected, or transferring files, try waiting a while before contacting your Central Axis through the Global Access service.

There are currently no plans to increase this file size limit.

Hard Disk Repair

Format a hard drive without using FDisk

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago05 mins

STEP ONE
You first need to decide what operating system you intend to load after formatting the hard drive. It is best and easiest to use a boot disk for that Operating System, such as MS Dos6.2 or Windows95b or Windows98SE. You will need the proper Windows95/98 boot disk in order to load the these operating systems on the computer, else it will reject loading due to the wrong Operating System on the computer.

STEP TWO
Insert your boot disk in the floppy drive and start the computer. Once the system has completed booting and an A: prompt appears we are ready to start.

Type: format C: /s [press Enter]

This statement tells the system to format your “C” drive and when it is finished to copy the system files to the drive, (the /s switch for ‘System’). You can format a different drive this way by using a different drive letter.

Format should display: WARNING, ALL DATA ON
NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Type [Y] [Press ENTER]

Your screen should display the size of your drive and a countdown in percentage of formatting completed. Depending on your computer’s speed and the size of the drive it can take from a few minutes to over 15minutes.

STEP THREE
When it reaches 100% complete, you will see a new message:
FORMAT COMPLETE. SYSTEM TRANSFERRED.

This indicates that the files required to boot your computer from the hard drive have been copied from the floppy to the hard drive. The computer can now boot from the hard drive without a boot disk in the floppy drive.

You will see one last message:
Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?
Type anything you like or leave it blank – [Press ENTER]

You can now begin to load your Operating System.
Special Note:
You may receive the error message:
“insufficient memory to load system files”

This is caused by the lack of a memory manager loaded at boot and your PC can only access the first 1mg of ram memory. There are two possible solutions:

1) Omit the /s switch when formatting. This is done by typing this:
FORMAT C: [press enter]

Then when the format is complete, manually add the system files to your hard drive by using this command:
SYS C: [press enter]

2) You will need to load a memory manager in order to overcome this issue. Not knowing what operating system boot disk you are using is an issue here. However, Windows98 boot disks load a memory manager, so let us assume it is either Windows95 or earlier.

You need to add the file HIMEM.SYS to your boot disk and then modify your Config.sys file on the boot disk.

Download Himem Here

and add this line in the Config.sys, (make this the first line):
DEVICE=himem.sys

Now, reboot your computer with the boot disk and it should work fine.

You will find that the boot disks we offer for download are all configured with a Memory manager and contain the file: HIMEM.SYS

Hard Disk Repair

How to use FDISK to partition a Hard Drive?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago05 mins

Using FDISK to create a Primary Partition

1. Go to an MS-DOS prompt or use a Boot Floppy.
2. Enter -> fdisk
3. Answer the question for large disk support (Y=FAT32 N=FAT)
4. If option 5 exist then you have more than 1 drive attached to your system.
• You need to determine, which drive you are going to partition.
• Enter option 5 and look at your options. It will show you the Drive number and the drive letter associated with it.
• Enter the drive number you wish to select.
• Just a note if you have a Primary Master and a Primary Slave, then the Primary Master will be Drive 1 and the Primary Slave will be Drive 2.
5. Enter Option 4 to “Display Partition Information” to confirm the drive your working with and that there are currently no partitions. If you already have a Primary Master, then you will need to delete it first. (Make sure you save your data first with a proper backup.)
6. Enter option 1 to “Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive”.
7. Enter option 1 to “Create Primary DOS Partition”.
8. you will be asked to “Enter Partition size in MBytes or percent of disk space

At this point the drive is ready to be formatted.
If you set this drive up as an additional drive to your existing OS, then you can boot into that OS and begin using the drive.
If this will become a Windows boot disk, you can now start your Windows installation.

Considerations

•Most functions in

FDISK

are catastrophic. Make sure to backup your data first.

•There are two types of Partitions.

1. Primary.

2. Extended.

•

Primary Partition.

1. Is a boot partition where the Operating System will reside or can also be used for user data.

2. Each Primary Partition is given a unique Drive Letter assignment. (C:)

•

Extended Partition.

1. Each Extended Partition can have one or more Logical Drive(s) within the Extended Partition.

2. Each Logical Drive is is given a unique Drive Letter assignment. (D:)

• Hard Drive number.

1. Windows classifies Hard Drives as Disk Drive 1 through Disk drive n.

•IDE Drives are scanned in the following order and given a number of 1 through n.

1. Primary Master.

2. Primary Slave.

3. Secondary Master.

4. Secondary Slave.

5. Tertiary Master.

6. Tertiary Slave.

7. Quantanary Master.

8. Quantanary Slave.

• SCSI Drives are scanned from SCSI ID 0 through 16 and given a number of 1 through nn.

• After entering the FDISK command, you will get a prompt, asking if you want large disk support.

1. If you reply Y (YES), then you will setup FAT32 partitions.

2. If you reply N (NO), then you will setup FAT (FAT16) partitions, that have a maximum of 2g.

3. If you did not receive this prompt then your fdisk command may be from Windows 95 (950A) and you should obtain a newer copy.

Hard Disk Repair

Can’t partition a SCSI hard drive with FDISK or Disk Utility?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago01 mins

If you are experiencing difficulty creating a partition on a SCSI disk drive, try these basic troubleshooting steps.

Check all cable connections. Test data cable by trying a different cable or try the cable on a known working drive.
Check the jumper settings.
Check termination.
Check the SCSI controller. Test it by trying a known good controller or a known working drive.
Check SCSI controller default settings. Set the controller to asynchronous negotiation and the transfer rate to 10Mbs (or the slowest setting).
Make this offending drive the only SCSI device in the system and re-test.
Run a SCSI ‘low level’ format routine in the SCSI BIOS Setup Utility.
Note: This will erase all the data on the drive.
Try the drive in a different system.

Hard Disk Repair

OneTouch External Hard Drive Operating Temperatures

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago01 mins

The OneTouch Drive feels much warmer than what the spec calls for…should we worry about this?

Problem:
The specifications on the datasheet for my OneTouch drive shows the operating temperature at: 5°C to 35°C (41°F to 95°F)

Cause:
The drive feels warmer than what is stated on the datasheet.

Solution:
The temperature specification identified is not the physical temperature of the drive. It is the temperature of the room where the drive is. The OneTouch drive will feel much warmer to the touch and can reach temperatures of approximately 55^oC and remain within specification.

Hard Disk Repair

What is ATA/IDE?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago09 mins

What is ATA/IDE?
Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) is a generic term applied to any drive with an integrated (built-in) disk controller. The first drives with integrated controller were Hardcards. In the IDE architecture, the disk controller is integrated into the drive. This combination drive/controller assembly usually plugs into an interface on the motherboard or an interface card plugged into an empty bus slot. The ATA Specification is simply a set of rules or guidelines that an IDE drive should conform to.

Data transfer modes

PIO-Modes

PIO stands for Programmed Input/Output and was the standard way of using ATA devices but it has become less popular, in favor of the new DMA modes. There are five different PIO modes, each have different transfer rates. The higher the mode number the higher the transfer rate. All PIO modes use the CPU to transfer data which makes this method unsuitable for multitasking environments. Which brings us to the transfer mode used today: DMA.

DMA modes

DMA stands for Direct Memory Access and is the term used when a peripheral device transfers data directly to or from memory, without the use of the CPU. Today DMA is the only feasible way to transfer data from the hard drive to memory as most of todays operating systems use multitasking and can better use the CPU for other tasks. The first DMA modes were not adopted by the popular OS’s of the time, but when Ultra DMA mode entered the scene it quickly became commonplace. The main difference between Ultra DMA and the older singleword and multiword transfers was that Ultra DMA mode clocks the data twice per clock cycle thereby doubling the bandwidth. The most favored today is Ultra DMA mode 2, aka UltraDMA/33.

Standards

ATA-1

To eliminate some major compatibility problems with the early ATA/IDE drives the ATA-1 specification was defined as an ANSI standard in 1994. Previously the most common problem showed up when drives of different manufacturers were placed as master and slave on the same channel.
The original ATA/IDE standard defines the following features and transfer modes:
It supports one or two harddrives on the same bus. One is configured as master and the other as slave.

ATA-2

The ATA-1 standard defined what the interface was capable of a decade ago, and there was a need for faster transfer rates and enhanced features. In 1996 the ATA-2 standard was defined as an ANSI standard that is backward compatible with the older ATA-1.
– Faster PIO modes: 3 and 4.
– Faster DMA modes: 1 and 2
– “Identify Drive” command allows software to query the drive for it’s geometry and characteristics (Plug ‘n’ Play).
Several manufacturers marketed drives based on ATA-2 under different names like “Fast-ATA”, “Fast-ATA-2” and “Enhanced IDE”, which are all marketing terms and not real standards.

ATA-3

In 1997 this ANSI standard was defined and can be viewed as a minor revision to ATA-2 and includes improves the reliability of the faster transfer modes introduced with ATA-2. Also added was the open standard for monitoring disk drive health, SMART

ATA/ATAPI-4

This revision adds some significant and long-awaited features:
– ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) for devices that require commands not available in the standard ATA standard like CD-ROMs and CD-R.
– Removable Media (Zip drive).
– Overlapped feature set allows devices that require extended time to perform a bus release so that other devices on the bus may be used.
– Ultra DMA data transfer protocol, aka Ultra ATA, which clocks data twice per clock cycle by using both the negative and positive transition.
– Defines an 80 conductor cable to be used for Ultra ATA devices, it is not mandatory however.

ATA/ATAPI-5

Adds Ultra DMA mode 4 or Ultra DMA/66, the 80 conductor cable is now mandatory to maintain signal integrity.

ATA/ATAPI-6

Not finalized yet. It will definately add Ultra DMA mode 5 or Ultra DMA/100 as it is already integrated in drives manufacturered today. Discussions are being held concerning noise reduction which can be found in drives shipping today as well.

Cabling for ATA

It’s easy to describe the different cable types used by the ATA interface today because there really is only one standard. And that is a 40/80 PIN flat cable with 3 IDC connectors. You can attach up to two units on the cable, one master and one slave. The 80 pin cable is for use with Ultra DMA devices but the 40 pin cable can be used with newer Ultra DMA devices but no faster modes than Ultra DMA/33 are available in that case.
In latter years a new cable has emerged, a 44 pin flat cable which is mostly used for 2.5″ internal harddrives. The 4 extra pins are used for supplying power to the drive.

Future for ATA

In order for the ATA interface to cope with the increased data clock rate in the future, a proper terminator has to be applied to prevent “ringing” in the cable. This is not easily solved while achieving backward compatibility and will require cooperation between the major hardware manufacturers to make it work. Perhaps a solution is around the corner as there is a draft for a FireWire ATA interface.

Hard Disk Repair

What is the DOS partition limitation?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago12 years ago01 mins

The DOS partition limitation is derived from the File Allocation Table (FAT). DOS uses the FAT to keep track of file addresses. The DOS FAT 16 is only capable of working with 32,768 bytes per cluster and no more than 65,536 clusters. If you multiply the two numbers together, you get the maximum partition size that DOS can use (2,147,483,648 bytes or 2048 MB {2,147,483,648 / 1024 ²}).

Hard Disk Repair

Western Digital Backup Plan

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago07 mins

Computers can and do fail and you usually get no warning before it’s too late. Backing up your data is no longer the chore that it once was. Here are some tips from Western Digital to help make it easier.

Get organized

Put all the documents you create, the pictures you take, and the music you buy in a single master folder. Divide that master folder into sub folders to keep your files organized. Backing up your data becomes much easier if you only have one folder to back up. When all your personal files are in one place, you are less likely to forget a file when you back up. Organization is the secret.

Back up regularly

Get in the habit of backing up your files regularly. If you work on your computer daily, you should back up important files daily. Then, back up everything at least once a week. Better still, look for backup software that backs up your data automatically and instantly without manual or scheduled backups.

Be selective

You don’t have to back up your entire system. That’s a time consuming task that only duplicates all the issues you’ve built up over time on your hard drive. Save original copies of your software programs and reinstall your operating system and a clean copy of your software if your system crashes.

Back up what’s important to you

The most important things to protect are files you create yourself. Whether they are text documents, e-mail messages, pictures, music, videos, or game saves, if you made them, you want to save them and keep them nearby. It’s also helpful to back up the configuration settings for any programs you use, along with critical Windows data such as the registry. And don’t forget to make a duplicate copy of anything you have stored on external storage device.

Use backup software

Use backup software to automate your backup. You can make mistakes or omit something important if you back up manually. An easy-to-use backup program creates a backup of your data reliably and automatically, keeps logs, and notifies you in case of any problem. Most WD external hard drives come with backup software.

WD’s extensive line of external drives that include automatic backup software:

My Book Home Edition
Preserve your precious memories with this ideal combination of elegant, reliable storage and automatic backup features.
My Book Office Edition
Protect your business assets and access them remotely with this easy-to-use combination of reliable storage and automatic backup features. Windows operating system required for remote access.
My Book Mirror Edition
Secure your vital data with WD’s My Book Mirror Edition dual-drive storage system with RAID Mirroring. With RAID-based continuous data protection, automatic data backup software, and user-serviceability, this is the perfect backup system for your irreplaceable data.
My Book Studio Edition
High-speed interfaces make this an ideal solution for creative professionals and video editors.
My Book Studio Edition II
Quad interface, RAID-enabled, about 30% less power consumption, formatted for Mac. The My Book Studio Edition II treads lightly on the earth and carries big performance for creative professionals.
My Book World Edition
Simplified set up and best-in-class performance make the My Book World Edition network drive the perfect choice for centralizing and backing up data on all the computers in your home.
WD ShareSpace
Plug this high-speed Gigabit Ethernet storage system into your small office or home network for centralized storage with plenty of capacity to go around.
My Passport Elite
These sleek little drives combine a luxurious, soft-touch finish with a clever capacity gauge, and backup, sync and encryption, and remote access software.

Where to backup

You can back up to CDs or DVDs, but this is a slow, manual process. And contrary to popular belief, most CDs and DVDs are not permanent. Low-priced CDRs may not be readable at all in as little as two years.

The best backup medium is an external hard drive. High capacity external drives are very fast and allow you to keep all your backed up data in one place. For extra safety, get a two-drive external storage system and dedicate half the capacity for mirroring to automatically and instantaneously back up your backup every time.

Hard Disk Repair

Should I update the BIOS on my SCSI controller?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago4 years ago01 mins

If you are not having any problems with your system, it is not necessary to update the BIOS for your SCSI controller or host adapter.

We recommend that you always contact the manufacturer of your SCSI controller for any available BIOS updates. SCSI controllers (and drives) reach development end-of-life. New updates may not be available. Some SCSI controllers require OEM specific versions to work with the specific chipset on the controller. This is especially true if your SCSI controller or host adapter was installed by an OEM manufacturer (such as Compaq, HP and Dell). BIOS utilities are typically updated with a manufacturer provided utility.

Before you proceed, identify your specific make, model of SCSI controller, the current BIOS revision numbers, and part number (typically printed on BIOS chip).