The Whole Drive Guide

Get Your Drive in Shape

Whether your system cost $400 or $4000, its most valuable component is the data contained on your hard drive, be it your critical business or financial files, a lifetime of scanned photographs, or even that future best-selling book. These tips explain how to maintain a healthy drive and spot trouble before it's too late.

Divide Your Disk

Every physical hard drive must be set up initially with one or more partitions. Each drive contains a table that defines how much and which part of the disk the drive's partitions occupy and which file system each uses. You can assign all the drive space to a single partition (drive C:) or divide it into multiple partitions (C:, D:, E:, and so on) to organize your files better or to run multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, with each tucked safely in a separate partition. Keeping your OS in its own partition--apart from programs and data--also allows you to reformat the partition easily and to reinstall the OS (the only fix for some virus infections or software problems) without destroying other data. Finally, you can prevent fragmentation of the swap or paging file by placing it in its own partition, using Windows' Virtual Memory settings.

Most installation software that comes in hard drive kits allows you to set up partitions on a new, blank disk. Alternatively, you can use the DOS program FDisk or utilities included in Windows. To make changes to a disk that already contains data, use a program like PowerQuest's PartitionMagic or V Communications' Partition Commander, both of which let you create, resize, and move partitions without harming the contents of your disk. To be safe, however, you should always back up your data before performing partitioning tasks; any software or system anomaly during an operation can render your data inaccessible. Case in point: A glitch in PartitionMagic 8.0 rendered our test system unbootable in a recent review. (See " Partitioning Plus Backup" for details.)

Work the (File) System

Depending on your version of Windows, each partition uses one of three file systems--FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS--to determine how files on the partition are stored, named, and organized. The oldest of the three, FAT16, limits files and partitions to 2GB; FAT32 limits individual files to 4GB, although partitions can be as large as 2 terabytes. NTFS is the most flexible of the systems, as it allows files up to a gargantuan 16 billion gigabytes (16 exabytes) in size. Only Windows XP, 2000, and NT recognize NTFS.

One tweak you can make to both NTFS and FAT systems is to set the size of a cluster--the basic unit of file storage on a disk--from 1KB to 64KB in NTFS and FAT32, and from 512 bytes to 64KB for FAT16. Smaller clusters typically waste less space, because every file (even if it's only 1 byte long) uses at least one cluster and almost always leaves its last cluster only partly filled. However, PCs can read larger clusters more quickly, thus boosting disk performance. Our advice? Use clusters of 32KB or 64KB, unless you're seriously short of disk space. The partitioning utilities mentioned above allow you to set the file system and cluster size when creating or modifying partitions. Tools in Windows XP and 2000 also let you set the cluster size on a new partition.

Keep Files Together

A fragmented file is one whose clusters do not directly follow one after the other--an inevitable fate as files are read, modified, and rewritten to the disk. A defragging utility shuffles the disk's data to make each file's clusters contiguous. As a result, the disk can read data faster--less of a benefit with today's fast drives--and you can recover deleted files more easily. Some defraggers may also reorganize and relocate often-used files to the faster, outer portion of the hard drive platters so that they load into memory more quickly. In our past tests of a few utilities, though, we've found no definitive evidence that doing so enhances performance.

Windows 2000 and XP automatically track NTFS file transactions and replace bad clusters; they also include defragging utilities for manual cleanup. If you use Windows Me, 98, or 95, however, a third-party defragger such as Speed Disk in Symantec's Norton SystemWorks or JetDefrag in V Communications' Fix-It Utilities works faster than the defraggers bundled with the older operating systems.

Fix Your Files

The latest versions of Windows (especially when set up with NTFS) have more-advanced features for repairing damage to your PC's file system, but all Windows versions carry disk-checking tools that you can run periodically to find and fix problems. They may launch at boot upon sensing that you shut down the PC improperly or that the system may have disk errors. You should never bypass these operations, though Windows offers you that option. Doing so may result in lost or corrupted files.

In Windows 98 and 95, you should run the disk checker about once a week. Right-click the drive in My Computer, select Properties, Tools, and under 'Error-checking' click Check Now. A third-party disk checker such as the Disk Doctor application included in Symantec's Norton SystemWorks or the DiskFixer in V Communications' Fix-It Utilities is a bit quicker but no more effective.

Hard-Drive Intensive Care

Hard drives are mechanical devices, and as such they are subject to failure. Even if you don't make regular backups, you may still be able to save your data when your drive goes south. If you see signs of trouble such as a 'DISK BOOT FAILURE' error message or nonsensical characters where a list of files should be, it's time to take action. You may be able to recover from disk problems with tools you already have at hand (but only if the drive isn't suffering a physical problem). These tips address some common symptoms.

Grinding noises: If your drive is making scratching, grinding, or ratcheting noises you haven't heard before, it may have suffered a head crash (in which the read/write head scrapes a platter) or another mechanical problem that will destroy more data as the disk continues to spin.

The safest way to proceed when vital data is in danger is to turn your system off and call a recovery service such as DriveSavers or Ontrack. These services will, if necessary, disassemble your drive in a clean room to recover data. According to DriveSavers, recovering an 80GB drive typically costs about $750.

If your data isn't that valuable, and you can still access files, you may take your chances by keeping the drive on and trying to copy the most important files to other media before the drive dies.

Data corruption: If your drive runs normally but files and directories are missing or appear as gibberish, you probably have file table or directory corruption. A virus may be at work, or the disk may be developing bad sectors (portions of clusters that no longer holds data reliably, rendering the affected clusters unusable). Bad sectors often indicate imminent drive failure. Try using recovery software that runs from a CD-ROM or floppy disk, such as R-Tools' R-Studio Agent Emergency (part of the $180 R-Studio network package). It recovers data by reading the information embedded within the files themselves, rather than in directories or file tables. Always recover to another hard drive or to backup media; then run an antivirus program and a disk checker to find errors or bad sectors. If you find any bad sectors, rescan every few days--if more appear, it's time for you to get a new drive.

Bad cables: If your system won't boot and its hard drive has stopped, you may have a bad cable or cable connection. First check that all connections are secure, with no bent or broken pins. Then try different cables (you can swap those from your IDE optical drive). In rare cases, the problem may result from bad connections inside the power supply. To check, put the drive in another system if you have one handy. But don't try a new drive in your malfunctioning system until you're sure the PC didn't kill the original drive.