Hard Drives

The correct answer is a cushion of air. The heads of a hard drive float on a thin cushion of air created by the spinning platters. This cushion of air allows the heads to glide smoothly and closely above the surface of the platters without making physical contact. This is important because any physical contact could damage the delicate heads or the surface of the platters, leading to data loss. The cushion of air also helps to reduce friction and allows the heads to move quickly and accurately to read and write data on the platters.

ATA/66 cables have the same number of pins as older 40-pin IDE cables, but require twice the number of wires to support the higher throughput (80 wires with 40 pins on each connector).

An internal SATA data connector has 7 conductors. This is because SATA (Serial ATA) is a computer bus interface that uses a seven-pin data cable to connect storage devices such as hard drives or solid-state drives to the motherboard. The seven conductors in the SATA data connector are responsible for transmitting data between the storage device and the motherboard, allowing for high-speed data transfer.

It is almost always a bad idea to put a hard drive and CD-ROM on the same IDE cable. While no damage will occur, it could severely degrade the performance of both devices. Hard drive access might become sluggish and CD burning could take longer.

There is one and only one active partition. During setup, Windows marks the first primary partition as active by default.

The boot sector in a basic disk contains the master boot record and partition table. The master boot record is the first sector of the disk and contains the boot loader code and the partition table. The partition table, on the other hand, is a data structure that stores information about the partitions on the disk, such as their size, location, and file system type. These two components are essential for the proper functioning of the disk and the booting process.

The expression "RLL 1, 7" refers to the minimum and maximum run lengths. Run Length Limited (RLL) encoding is a technique used in data storage to represent data in a more efficient manner. The numbers 1 and 7 indicate the minimum and maximum lengths of consecutive 0s or 1s in the encoded data. This information is important for decoding the data accurately.

In a SCSI chain, termination refers to the process of properly ending the communication between devices. It is essential for the end devices in a SCSI chain to be terminated to ensure smooth data transfer and prevent signal reflections. Termination is typically achieved by connecting a termination resistor at the end of the chain. Without proper termination, the SCSI chain may experience signal degradation, data corruption, or even complete failure. Therefore, termination is necessary for the proper functioning of the SCSI chain.

A SATA bridge is a physical adapter that goes between the PATA drive connector and the SATA cable connector to allow backward compatibility.

The boot sector on a basic disk contains the master boot record, which is responsible for loading the operating system. It also contains the partition table, which provides information about the different partitions on the disk. The master boot record and partition table work together to ensure that the correct partition is booted and the operating system is loaded successfully.

Bad sectors found during manufacture are made inaccessible to the controller and automatically mapped to "spare sectors" which are alternate good sectors specially reserved for this purpose.

Modern hard drives do not have uniform sector counts due to zoned bit recording. Therefore, a dummy count of 63 is typically used to fool the BIOS.

Devices are "daisy chained" in SCSI. SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a standard interface used for connecting multiple peripheral devices to a computer. In a SCSI setup, devices are connected in a daisy chain configuration, where each device is connected to the previous one, forming a chain. This allows for efficient data transfer and better organization of devices. SCSI is commonly used in high-performance and server environments where multiple devices need to be connected and accessed simultaneously.

On ATA-5 cables, gray connectors are connected to slave drives. Slave drives are secondary drives that are connected to the primary/master drive in a computer system. The gray connectors on ATA-5 cables are specifically designed for connecting these slave drives.

In addition to each drive having a SCSI ID, the SCSI host adapter itself also must have it's own SCSI ID.

On a basic disk, primary partitions and logical drives are the basic volumes. Primary partitions are created on a basic disk and can be used to install an operating system. Logical drives, on the other hand, are created within an extended partition and are used to organize and store data. Physical drives, although mentioned in the options, are not considered as basic volumes on a basic disk.

Two devices on the same SCSI host adapter may have the same SCSI ID, so long as they exist in separate chains.

A slave drive can be installed on either the primary IDE channel or the secondary IDE channel. The primary IDE channel is typically used for the master drive, while the secondary IDE channel is used for the slave drive. This allows for multiple drives to be connected to the same motherboard and accessed simultaneously. Therefore, both the primary and secondary IDE channels are valid options for installing a slave drive.

IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. This term refers to a standard interface used in computers for connecting storage devices such as hard drives and CD-ROM drives. IDE allows these devices to be easily installed and recognized by the computer's operating system. It uses a specific cable with connectors for data transfer and power supply. IDE has been widely used in personal computers and was later replaced by SATA (Serial ATA) as the standard interface for storage devices.

Ultra DMA mode 2 is also known as ATA/33 because it has a maximum transfer rate of 33.3 megabytes per second (MB/s). This mode is an enhancement of the original ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) standard and allows for faster data transfer between the computer's hard drive and the motherboard. ATA/33 was an improvement over the earlier PIO (Programmed Input/Output) modes, providing faster and more efficient data transfer.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) supports up to 15 devices per host adapter. This means that a single SCSI host adapter can connect and communicate with up to 15 different SCSI devices such as hard drives, tape drives, scanners, and printers. This allows for efficient and flexible expansion of storage and peripheral devices in a computer system.

RAID 0 (disk striping) consists of two or more drives that cuts data into pieces and distributes them across all drives in the array. This makes efficient use of available space. However, because pieces of data span across multiple drives, if one drive fails, the entire array is lost. RAID 0 is "fast and spacious", but not safe.

Many PC's with a history of unused secondary channels have them disabled within CMOS setup. The first thing to do is check CMOS and make sure the secondary channel is enabled and drive shows up in the list of recognized devices.

LBA (Logical Block Addressing) is a technique used in computer storage devices to access data. It allows support for up to 8.4 GB of storage capacity. This means that with LBA, the storage device can address and access data on a storage medium that has a capacity of up to 8.4 GB.

SATA supports 1 drive per port, meaning that each port can accommodate only one drive. However, SATA also supports an unlimited number of devices per system, which means that multiple drives can be connected to the system as long as there are available ports. Therefore, while each port can only have one drive connected to it, there is no limit to the total number of drives that can be connected to the system.

Internal SCSI device connectors have 68 pins. SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a set of standards for connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The internal SCSI connectors are used to connect internal SCSI devices such as hard drives, CD/DVD drives, and tape drives to the computer's motherboard or SCSI controller. The 68-pin connector provides a high-speed and reliable connection for data transfer between the SCSI device and the computer system.

Perpendicular recording is the technology that records fluxes on the platter vertically. This method allows for higher data density and increased storage capacity compared to traditional horizontal recording methods. In perpendicular recording, the magnetization of the recording media is aligned perpendicular to the surface, allowing for smaller, more closely packed magnetic domains. This enables more data to be stored in a given area, resulting in higher storage capacities for hard drives and other magnetic storage devices.

Voice coil technology achieves its high accuracy through a servo mechanism in which a feedback loop uses alignment data to correct any positioning errors. One side of one platter is completely dedicated to supplying this servo alignment data.

SCSI host adapters are typically assigned SCSI IDs to differentiate them from other devices on the SCSI bus. In this case, the correct SCSI IDs for SCSI host adapters are 7 and 15. These IDs are commonly used for host adapters to avoid conflicts with other devices.

The correct answer is 2 meters because eSATA cable lengths are limited to a maximum of 2 meters. This limitation is due to the signal degradation that occurs over longer distances, which can result in data loss or errors. Therefore, to ensure reliable and high-speed data transfer, it is recommended to use eSATA cables within this specified length range.

RAID 1 (disk mirroring) consists of two redundant drives - one an exact data duplicate of the other. If one drive fails, the other takes over. This may be implemented with a single controller for both drives (mirroring), or a separate controller for each drive (duplexing). Although RAID 1 is space inefficient and slow, it is safer than the simple striping of RAID 0.

The "geometry" specification of a drive consists of the number of heads, the number of sectors per track, and the number of cylinders. These parameters determine how the data is organized and accessed on the drive. The number of heads represents the number of read/write heads in the drive, which determines the number of surfaces available for data storage. The number of sectors per track indicates the number of data units that can be stored on each track. Lastly, the number of cylinders refers to the number of tracks on each surface of the drive. Together, these parameters define the physical layout of the drive and affect its performance and capacity.

External SCSI use either 50-pin or 68-pin high density (HD) connectors.

PIO stands for Programmed Input/Output. It is a method of data transfer between the hard drive and the CPU. In PIO mode, the CPU directly controls the data transfer by issuing commands and waiting for the data to be transferred. This mode requires the CPU to be actively involved in the data transfer process, which can limit the overall system performance. However, PIO mode is commonly used for compatibility reasons with older systems or devices that do not support more advanced transfer modes like DMA.

INT13 extensions refer to the extensions of the INT13 BIOS interrupt, which is used to access hard drives in the older BIOS systems. These extensions were introduced to overcome the limitations of the original INT13 interrupt, which could only support drives up to 8.4 GB in size. With the INT13 extensions, the maximum supported drive size increased to 137 GB. Therefore, the correct answer is 137 GB.

eSATA cables are mechanically incompatible with internal SATA ports.

In the context of flux reversals, a run refers to a consecutive sequence of reversals in a magnetic material. It represents a group or series of adjacent flux reversals. Therefore, the correct answer is "Runs".

A multiple RAID configuration consisting of a mirrored pair of striped arrays (with distributed parity) is termed RAID 5+1. This configuration combines the features of RAID 5 and RAID 1. In RAID 5, data is striped across multiple drives with distributed parity, providing fault tolerance and increased performance. RAID 1, on the other hand, involves mirroring data across two drives for redundancy. By combining these two configurations, RAID 5+1 offers both fault tolerance and improved performance, making it an ideal choice for applications that require high availability and reliability.

This error message indicates that during bootup, BIOS was unable to establish a connection with any hard drives.

To pinpoint the cause:

In CMOS setup, make sure the hard drive channels are enabled and included in the boot order.

Check the integrity and quality of all drive cables and connectors (including power). They might be faulty, loose, disconnected, or missing altogether.

The jumper settings might be inappropriate for the cable configuration. Change the position of the drive(s) on the cable, and/or change the jumper settings.

All primary partitions must have an entry in the partition table to be recognized by the operating system. This entry contains information about the partition, such as its size, location, and file system. Additionally, primary partitions must have a unique identifier, such as a drive letter or folder, which allows the operating system to access and interact with the partition. Logical drives, on the other hand, are not required for primary partitions. A corresponding extended partition is also not necessary for primary partitions, as extended partitions are used to create logical drives.

Ultra DMA mode 4 is also known as ATA/66 because it refers to the fourth generation of Ultra DMA (Direct Memory Access) technology, which allows for data transfer rates of up to 66 megabytes per second. ATA stands for Advanced Technology Attachment, which is a standard interface used for connecting storage devices like hard drives to a computer. ATA/66 indicates that the interface supports Ultra DMA mode 4, providing faster data transfer speeds compared to earlier versions.

Basic disks are limited to four partitions. Up to four of them may be primary, and only one extended partition is supported.

PRML stands for "Partial Response Maximum Likelihood". It is an advanced form of RLL that allows for longer run lengths than RLL.

Stepper motors are obsolete technology in the hard drive industry. They have been supplanted by voice coil technology to drive the actuator arms.

ATA-2 introduced ATAPI, which extended ATA to allow CD-ROM drives and tape drives to be connected to ATA controllers.

Partitioning a hard drive allows one to install multiple operating systems on it and proceed with formatting. By dividing the hard drive into separate partitions, each partition can be dedicated to a different operating system, allowing the user to have multiple operating systems installed on the same physical drive. Additionally, partitioning also allows for formatting, which is the process of preparing the hard drive for data storage by creating a file system.

SATA (Serial ATA) is part of the ATA-7 standard. ATA-7 is the seventh version of the ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) standard, which is used for connecting storage devices such as hard drives and optical drives to a computer. SATA, specifically, is a type of interface that allows for faster data transfer rates and more efficient communication between the storage device and the computer.

Flux reversals are the transitions between opposite magnetic poles.

A "basic disk" is a drive using the master boot record partitioning scheme.

There is some disagreement about the usage of the term "volume". Some Comptia preparation books say they are synonymous with "partition", while other sources say otherwise. Some volumes do not necessarily exist as partitions (e.g. floppy disks), and are better thought of as "drives" or "logical drives".

Extended partitions are unbootable and have no drive letter of their own. However, they may contain logical drives. Each logical drive within an extended partition can be assigned a drive letter.