If your hard drive seems to be making more noise than usual, there is a good chance it has become fragmented. Hard drive fragmentation occurs when files and folders are moved around, added, copied, and deleted.

Your computer's hard drive stores information in blocks of data. When information becomes scattered on your hard drive, some files are written onto blocks that are not next to each other. This is known as file fragmentation. Your hard drive can still run when there are fragmented files on it, but it will run slower. This is because it has to scan more of the disk to access certain files. The extra scanning is what causes the hard drive to make more noise. When you start hearing an excessive amount of grinding from your hard drive, it is time to defragment it. A program like Norton Utilities will do this well.

You can also take the defragmentation process one step further and optimize your hard drive. This process moves similar types of files next to each other, so the hard drive head doesn't need to jump around as much. Optimizing your hard drive is a great way to increase performance. If you like your computer running as fast as possible, it is a good idea to defragment it at least once a month and optimize it every three months.

There is a good chance you have some bad or corrupted blocks on your hard drive. The best thing to do is to run a disk utility program (like Norton Disk Doctor, part of Norton Utilities). This usually fixes problems such as bad blocks or corrupted disk directories. If the utility program can't fix it, you may have to reformat the hard drive, which means erasing all your data. If you have important files on the drive, make sure you back it up before you do anything.

When you partition your hard drive, you create different sections of it that your computer reads as separate disks. One reason for partitioning your hard drive is so that you can install multiple operating systems on it. For example, Linux needs to be installed on its own partition in order to work. Another reason to partition your hard drive is so that it will read data more efficiently. If you have a large hard drive (20 GB or more), it would be wise to split it into at least two partitions. This way, the hard disk doesn't have to scan as much to find files. It also allows data to be stored in smaller block sizes, which means more space for your files.

To partition a hard drive that has already been formatted (and which you don't want to erase), you can use a program like Partition Magic, which will create a new partition on a hard drive without erasing any data. Otherwise, you can use your operating system's drive setup program to initialize and partition your hard drive. Though this is the best way to partition your drive, it can only be done by erasing all the data on it first.

If you can't boot up your computer from your hard drive, the next best option is to start up off a CD. If you have your Windows or Mac OS CD, you can usually start up off that. Just make sure the CD is in the computer before the operating system loads. You can then use a diagnostic program on the CD to check your hard drive and hopefully repair it. If that doesn't work, you can boot of a utility CD such as Norton Utilities and use the hard drive utilities on the CD to repair your hard drive. If you still can't get the hard drive working, it's best that you call the manufacturer and explain the problem to them.

IDE drives must be set up in a "Master-Slave" configuration. This means one hard drive is designated as the master device, and the other one is called the slave drive. The drive with your operating system installed on it should be the master, and the CD or other hard drive should be the slave. To determine which drive is which, you usually have to change the jumpers on the back of the drives. (They are typically little plastic pieces that go on to small metal pins). You'll need to check the manuals that go with the drives to know how to set them correctly. An improper setup of your devices could likely result in one or both drives not functioning.

Note: You can have one master device per IDE controller. So if you have two IDE controllers on your motherboard, you can have two master devices. Then you don't have to worry about any master-slave issues at all. Yea!

The terms high density and double density are pretty confusing. A high density diskette can store 1.44 MB after being formatted. (It can hold about 2.0 MB before being formatted.) A double density diskette can only hold 720K of data, or half that of a high density diskette. Sometimes, high density diskettes are referred to as HD/DD, which makes the difference a little more obvious. Double density diskettes are pretty much obsolete now, and it looks like HD diskettes are soon to follow.