Your hard drive is  one of the most important things you own into your computer. It contains work data, school data, emails, photos, music, movies, fax information,file, passwords,personal information etc… Incidentally, the hard-disk is also one of only two moving components in your PC (the other being your CD-ROM or DVD ROM drive). The next rows are a list of important maintenance and monitoring techniques you can use to maximize the life of your hard-disk and prevent data loss.

Hard drives are physically fragile.
Statistics show that 25% of lost data is due to a failure of a portable drive.
Contrary to its seemingly rugged appearance, your hard drive is a very delicate device that writes / reads data using microscopic magnetic particles. Any vibration, shock, and other careless operation may damage your disk and cause or contribute to the possibility of a failure. This is specific for notebook users, as they are most at risk of drive failure due to physical damage, theft, and other causes beyond their control. That’s why we recommend almoust daily backup of notebook hard drives.
Possible solutions include external USB, Firewire drives , ZIP drive(although these are prone to the same risks), desktop synchronization, or backup at a data center through the internet.

When data accumulate on your hard drive, they do not just get written in a linear fashion. A hard drive writes data in small pieces and scatters them over the surface. The fuller your hard disk becomes and the more files you save and delete the worse file fragmentation can be. Hard drive access times increase with fragmentation since your disk must work harder to find all the pieces of the files. The more fragmented your data is, the harder the actuator arm has to work to find each piece of a file.


Luckily, Windows operating system makes it remarkably easy to defrag your hard drive, simply launch the Disk Defragmenter utility (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools), choose which disk or partition you’d like to defragment and set it to work overnight or while you are not actively using your computer. Defragmentation will speed up your PC and ensure a longer life for your hard drive.


Be SMART, monitor the health of your drive to prevent unexpected crashes and lose your private data.

All modern hard disk have a self-monitoring technology called SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology). What most people don’t know is that the majority of hard drive failures do not have to be unexpected. Most crashes occur as a result of long-term problems which can be predicted. By regularly monitoring disk health and performance, you can know about potential hard drive problems before you lose any of your data.

Several excellent utilities are available, including DiskView and Stellar SMART for standard
The only fool-proof way to prevent data loss is... Backup your hard drive!