What is the procedure for disconnecting an external hard drive?

External Hard Drive It is important to follow the appropriate steps when disconnecting the hard drive. If the proper procedure is not followed then data may be lost.

In Windows a small icon appears in the system tray (next to the clock) . this is the dismount icon that allows you to safely disconnect hot pluggable devices.

To dismount the drive before removing it follow these steps:

  1. Right click the icon. This give you the options to safely remove each hot plug device attached to the system.
  2. Choose to remove the external drive. Once you click the choice another window will open allowing you to select which device to remove.
  3. Click the Stop button then you will be prompted for confirmation.
  4. Windows OS displays a message when it is safe to turn off the drive.
  5. Once the drive is turned off, disconnect the interface cable.

If the device is busy then the request to stop the device will be rejected. Be sure to close any applications that are using data from the external drive then attempt to stop the device again. Usually the Windows Explorer will be open and will be the application keeping the drive busy.

In Mac OS the drive appears as an icon on the desktop. Before unplugging the drive the drive needs to be dismounted by dragging the drive to the Trash Can. Wait a few seconds after the drive has gone into the Trash Can, once the activity light has gone out you can safely remove the drive. Once the drive is turned off, disconnect the interface cable.

Note: MacOS users should always dismount the drive before shutting down (or powering off) their computer. If the drive is not properly dismounted there is a chance of data loss.

Read More

Data Recovery Glossary (Letter I)

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 operation or device that allows input and output.

Interface
A hardware or software protocol that handles the exchange of data between the device and the computer; the most common ones are AT (also known as IDE) and SCSI. (See AT and SCSI.)

Interface controller
The chip or circuit that translates computer data and commands into a form suitable for use by the hard drive and controls the transfer of data between the buffer and the host. (See disk controller and disk drive controller.)

Interleave
The arrangement of sectors on a track.

Interrupt
A signal sent by a subsystem to the CPU that signifies a process has either completed or could not be completed.

ISA
Industry Standard Architecture. The standard 16-bit AT bus designed by IBM for the PC/AT system. ISA was the only industry standard bus for PCs until the recent release of MCA (MicroChannel Architecture), EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture), and PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect).

Read More

Seagate Unveils the First Hard Disk Drive Featuring 1 TB Per Platter

Seagate Unveils The World's First Hard Drive Featuring 1 TB Per PlatterMay 3, 2011 – Seagate Technology LLC unveiled the world’s first 3.5-inch hard disk drive featuring 1TB of storage capacity per disk platter, breaking the 1TB areal density barrier to help meet explosive worldwide demand for digital content storage in both home and office.

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB Hard Disk Drive

Seagate’s GoFlex Desk products are the first to feature the new hard disk drive, delivering storage capacities of up to 3TB and an areal density of 625 Gigabits per square inch, the industry’s highest. Seagate is on track to ship its flagship 3.5-inch Barracuda desktop hard disk drive with 3TBs of storage on 3 disk platters – which can provide enough capacity to store up to 120 high-definition movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos or virtually countless hours of digital music – to the distribution channel in mid-2011. The hard drive will also be available in capacities of 2TB, 1.5TB and 1TB.

“Organizations of all sizes and consumers worldwide are amassing digital content at light speed, generating immense demand for storage of digital content of every imaginable kind, we remain keenly focused on delivering the storage capacity, speed and manageability our customers need to thrive in an increasingly digital world.” – said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing.

GoFlex Desk external hard drives are compatible with both the Windows® and Mac® computers. Each drive includes an NTFS driver for Mac, which allows the drive to store and access files from both Windows and Mac OS X computers without reformatting. The GoFlex Desk external drive’s sleek black 3.5-inch design sits either vertically or horizontally to accommodate any desktop environment.

Read More