Don't Get Caught With Your Disk Down

When was the last time you backed up your important files? Last week? Last month? You don't remember? You're not alone. Even the most conscientious computer users have some unsaved data on their hard drive, and that data is always at risk. Why? Because sooner or later, all hard drives fail. And when yours does, your unprotected data will go with it.

If you know what to look for, what to listen for, and how to respond when you see it or hear it, there's a good chance you'll be able to rescue your data from a dying disk before it's too late.

Stop, Look, and Listen

Sometimes failing hard drives offer warning signs of their imminent demise. If you're lucky enough to see or hear one of these signs, stop what you're doing and immediately back up your data. It isn't uncommon for a failing drive to go from being partly accessible to being completely inaccessible in a very short time.

How can you tell if your drive is dying? Watch for any error messages about the names or locations of files or folders. For example, if Windows can't find a file that you're sure is on the hard disk, be worried. Likewise, if Windows won't let you move or save a familiar file, or if the names of files and folders contain strange characters or have changed to complete gibberish, it's safe to suspect disk trouble as the cause.

If you encounter any of the symptoms described above, don't panic. Some of your data may have been scrambled by errant software or by an isolated hardware glitch. To check, run Windows' ScanDisk utility. In Windows 98 and Me, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, ScanDisk. In Windows 2000 and XP, open My Computer, right-click the drive, select Properties, Tools, and click the Check Now button under 'Error-checking'.

Set ScanDisk to examine the entire disk for physically damaged sectors. To do this in Windows 98 and Me, enable the Thorough option (see FIGURE 1). In Windows 2000 and XP, check both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt to fix bad sectors. (On multigigabyte hard disks, this may take hours, so be patient.)

If ScanDisk reports more than a few physical errors, there's a good chance your hard disk is on the way out. But if it reports only a few logical errors, such as cross-linked or fragmented files, let ScanDisk repair the files and then run ScanDisk periodically to see if the errors recur. Running ScanDisk once a month is a good way to catch hard disk problems before they become irreparable.

Clicks and Grinds

Keep your ears tuned for any unusual noises coming from your hard disk: Strange sounds often mean big trouble; for examples, download.wav files of some common hard-drive-in-distress sounds. (Thanks to John Christopher of data recovery service DriveSavers.com for providing these files.)

A high-pitched whining sound (bearings.wav) could mean your hard drive's bearings are going bad. Relatively speaking, this is good news; you may actually be able to rescue your soon-to-be-stranded data. If your operating system loads and you're able to move files off the hard disk, do so immediately.

If you hear sustained clicking noises, you probably won't be able to access the hard disk at all, and your operating system most likely won't load. A pause-click, pause-click sound (cycleclick.wav) indicates that your drive's read/write heads are trying to orient themselves. The drive has probably sustained some damage, and you've likely lost some data. Continuous, rapid-fire clicking (excess.wav) is an ominous sound for any drive.

In either case, your chances of recovering your data manually are slim. Don't keep turning your system on and off in hopes that your hard drive will finally catch, or start up, one last time; it won't.

Any grinding or scraping sound (grind.wav) is another sign of serious trouble. Your hard drive's read/write heads are in contact with the disk's media surface--where the data is stored. Shut down your drive immediately; the longer it runs, the more data you may lose.

Your best chance of recovering data from the catastrophic failure indicated by these clicking and grinding sounds is to send your drive to a data recovery service. Both DriveSavers.com and Ontrack are very skilled at rescuing data from dead drives. But be prepared to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars, depending on your PC's operating system, the size of the hard drive, and how quickly you need to recover your data.

Get Smart

Self-monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) is a diagnostic capability built into most of the hard drives manufactured in the past few years. SMART technology constantly monitors hard drive components and performance. When it sees indications of a possible failure, it issues a warning.

How the warning reaches you varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. It may show up in the BIOS announcements that appear on your screen when you first start your computer, or you may need to run diagnostic software capable of accessing SMART information. Check with your hard drive's manufacturer to see whether it has specific programs for this.

Both Ontrack's SystemSuite and Symantec's SystemWorks utility suites monitor SMART data. If you want to run a quick check of your hard drive right away, try Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Online Diagnostics. This program is designed to work with all SMART-enabled hard drives.

Sales Pitch

I'm shopping for a low-cost 17-inch monitor, and I'm confused about dot-pitch numbers. A salesman insisted that I need a monitor with a dot pitch of no more than.25mm, but I've seen less-expensive monitors with a slightly larger dot pitch. If I'm only using my PC for word processing and reading news on the Internet, do I really need the more expensive models?

Karen Smith, San Diego

CRT monitors have red, green, and blue phosphorus painted on the inside of the glass. There are two types: One has more than a million tightly spaced phosphor dots that light up to create the images on your monitor's screen, and the other has thousands of continuous vertical phosphor stripes. Dot pitch is the distance between dots of the same color in the first type of monitor; stripe pitch, the corresponding measurement for the second type, is the distance between stripes of the same color. (The Sony Trinitron introduced striped monitors, but several other vendors--notably Mitsubishi with its Diamondtron line--now make them as well.) You'll also hear the terms mask pitch and aperture grill pitch, which are nearly equivalent to dot pitch and stripe pitch, respectively. Generally, the smaller the pitch, the crisper the image. Even if you rarely view graphics on your screen, you may benefit from a smaller pitch.

As a rule of thumb, don't buy a monitor with a dot pitch higher than.28mm or a stripe pitch greater than.25mm. (Because stripe pitch is measured horizontally and dot pitch is measured diagonally, a.25mm stripe pitch is roughly equivalent to a.27mm dot pitch.) You should be able to find such a monitor that suits both your needs and your budget. If you do a lot of reading on your PC--especially if you frequently look at small fonts--a monitor with a smaller pitch may be worth the extra expense.

Quick-Change Artist?

Being a graphic artist, I frequently change my monitor's resolution and color-depth settings. In Windows 98, clicking an icon on the taskbar immediately brought up the settings. But I can't do this in Windows XP. Do you know of any alternative methods that work for XP?

Robert Thrasher, Provo, Utah

You need a new version of the QuickRes utility that was included in previous versions of Microsoft's free PowerToys program. In Windows 98 and Me, QuickRes is integrated into the operating system. Simply right-click your desktop, select Properties, click the Settings tab, and choose the Advanced button. Check Show settings icon on task bar to have a handy icon appear in the taskbar (see FIGURE 2). Click this icon to see a list of your available color and resolution options. You can select your new setting with a single click.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't provide this functionality in Windows XP, nor did the company include a separate utility with QuickRes's features in the version of PowerToys for Windows XP. So instead, download the free 1st QuickRes Light from Green Parrots Software (the Pro version costs $25).

Kick the Tires

Thinking of buying a used PC? These days, many older PCs have a lot of life left in them. But before you shell out any of your hard-earned dough, put your prospective purchase through its paces. PassMark Software's $22 BurnInTest 3 will push a PC's CPU, hard drives, graphics, and other major components to their limits to ensure that they're all working properly.

You can reach PC World Contributing Editor Kirk Steers at kirk_steers@pcworld.com. We welcome your tips and questions and pay $50 for published items. Click here to see more Hardware Tips columns.