The Ticking Time Bomb that is Your PC

Most people who own a computer have it in the back of their mind that they need to backup there important document. What most people are less aware of is why they need to do this. In my experience most would say that it in case your computer gets stolen, a file gets mistakenly deleted, or the PC just breaks down. This is a bit of a broad reason as far as I’m concerned. The biggest reason why I backup is because the average hard disk fails when it is 3-5 years old.

When a hard disk fails it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of its contents are entirely irretrievable. More often than not, it just means that one very small part of the disk (called a sector) has gone “bad”. A bad sector is one that can’t be read because it has simply been worn out. The bit of information that was stored in that sector may or may not be recoverable by a professional data recovery technician.

Let’s take the analogy of a scratch on a CD. It might make a bit of noise or a blip at that particular part of a song, but the rest of all the other songs are still in tact. In a similar way, a bad sector may cause you to lose perhaps one file, but the rest are fine. In Windows XP, you can right-click your hard drive, choose properties, select the Tools tab, click “Check Now...” This will correct any errors on your hard disk.

This might seem like the problem has gone away, but this should be a warning shot to you. It is a signal that your hard drive has become prone to failing, and will become even more and more so as time goes by.

You will need to install a new hard disk which is pretty straight forward on most computers. Then you need to copy all of your data across which is also straight forward using a program called Acronis True Image. Once all your data is copied across you could keep using the drive but I wouldn’t store any important files on it. I use it to store video files captured off my TV tuner – these are not that important to me, so I am willing to take the risk.