A hard drive is basically a storage device that uses circular magnetic disks for storing digital data. Actually there is plenty of confusion over the terms hard disk and hard drive and very often they are used interchangeably. The confusion is there probably because earlier both the hard disk and the hard drive came as separate components just like we have DVD and DVD drives.

But now, both the hard drive and the hard disk are sealed together as a single unit and this is why they are now technically referred to as Hard Disk Drives (HDD). The term ‘hard drive’ has however become more popular obviously because it is easier to pronounce. So, if anyone mentions hard drive, always remember that what he or she is basically referring to is a Hard Disk Drive.

Hard drives are being used extensively and if you look around your home, you will notice that you are virtually surrounded by them. The most likely places where you will find a hard drive include everything from computers and notebooks to gaming consoles, digital audio/video players, digital cameras, digital video recorders, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and many more. You cannot see them directly in most of these, but you can be sure that they are there and are working continuously for you behind the scenes.

The earliest of hard drives just had around 2 MB of storage space, but things have changed dramatically over the years and now you can easily get hard drives of over 1000 GB, if that is you need so much storage space. The speed has also increased over the years and now you can get super fast hard drives that rotate at 7200 rpm. The more the rotating speed, the less time it takes to access data stored on the hard drive.

If you want, you can also opt for external hard drives that you can use for backing up your important files and folders. You can also use it for archiving all your favorite movies, TV serials, home videos, and songs.

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Disk defragmenter is an application that comes installed with the Windows Operating System. The main function of this software utility is to speed up the performance of your computer and also to maximize storage space utilization of your hard drive. For using this utility, you just have to click on Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. You can also access this utility by clicking on “My Computer” and selecting ‘Manage’ from the available options.

After this, you just have to select the Drive or Drives that you want to defrag and click on the ‘Defragment’ button. After this you just need to sit back and relax while the defragmenter does the job for you. You should do this preferably at night because Defragmentation can take several hours depending on the amount of data that you might have on your hard drive.

Using Disk defragmenter from time to time is necessary because as you continue to add and remove files and folders, your hard drive becomes a virtual war zone, scattered with bits and pieces of data everywhere. This slows down your system obviously because the operating system has to work harder to access the data stored in your hard drive.

Using an un-fragmented drive is like reading a book whose pages are strewn all over the floor. In this context, what Disk defragmenter does is that it picks up all the pages from the floor and arranges them together according to the page numbers. In real terms, the defragmenter rearranges files and folders in such a way that it helps in boosting the computer’s processing speed and maximizing space utilization.

For getting the best results, I would recommend that you close all other running programs before starting the Defragmentation process. This would help the Disk Defragmenter to make the most appropriate file allocations and last but not the least, complete the defrag in the shortest possible time.

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The term ‘defragging’ is actually a technical jargon that refers to the “Disk Defragmenter” option available in Windows Operating System. The basic purpose of defragging is to speed up the performance of your computer by arranging files and folders as stored on your hard drive in the most appropriate manner.

Defragging also helps in making the best possible utilization of storage space as might be available on your hard drive. To be able to defrag, you will have to click on Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. You can also right click on “My Computer” and select ‘Manage’, to get to the Disk Defragmenter option.

To understand how defragging actually works, you first need to have a look at the file allocation system as used by Windows. What Windows does is that it formats your hard drive into thousands of small data clusters that are usually 512 bytes or characters. All your files and folders are stored in these data clusters, but since Windows randomly selects the actual storage point, your hard drive ends up with files and folders that are haphazardly stored all over the place.

Just try imagining reading a book whose pages are strewn all over your home and you will know how difficult it actually is for Windows to read from an un-fragmented hard drive. Defragging in turn would represent your efforts to pick up individual pieces of the book and arrange them in a proper sequence according to the page numbers.

Defragging is something that you need to do from time to time, at least once every quarter. You can do it more frequently if you want, but since doing so every other day will not make much of a difference to your computer’s performance, I would never recommend this. Moreover, since defragging can take several hours depending on the amount of data in your hard drive, I would recommend that you start the Defragmentation process at night. Leave it overnight and when you wake up you will find a computer that’s much faster and smarter.

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An Access Violation error is the abbreviated term for what’s known as a segmentation fault. It is a problem that occurs when a program, or a piece of software, tries to access memory that it doesn’t have permission to use.

It’s the computer equivalent of walking in to a locked door, you could say. The files that you want are protected by a security layer, or are simply locked and inaccessible from your current environment.

Access Violation errors are also a very common trait of software that is configured incorrectly. While UNIX machines will receive a SIGSEGV signal about the invalid memory, users on Microsoft Windows operating systems will be presented with the STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION exception, better known as an Access Violation.

If, for example, you have a hardware device which is recently installed, and software which is used by other programs, it’s possible that you’ll receive an Access Violation when trying to use the new hardware device, if its drivers are being used by another source. These sort of collisions will often result in Access Violations where a piece of software is in demand from two or more pieces of hardware, and it can only feed one at a time.

The memory is thus locked, and any attempt to access the important source files will be blocked out. The Access Violation error is returned, and you, the end user- will be left to scratch your head.

You may have also received an Access Violation exception when attempting to access a typical file or folder that you wouldn’t expect to be involved with any system processes or crucial drivers. In most cases, this is down to the attribute of the file.

If you try to write to a file which is designated as Read-Only, you will be attempting to breach the security permissions of that particular file. This is blocked out by the Access Violation exception. But the good news is, such errors are easy to fix.

To resolve a permission error, we need to enter the Command Prompt and make a change to the attributes of the file. If you can’t open it, we need to make it readable. If you can’t write to it, we need to make it writeable. And so forth.

The Dos command for making changes to the attribute of a file is shown below:

ATTRIB [+R | -R] [+A | -A] [+S | -S] [+H | -H] [[drive:][path]file] [/S]

If this is no more than random gibberish to you, don’t worry. It’s quite simple when broken down.

The plus sign is used to add attributes, and the minus sign takes them away.

R is the READ-ONLY attribute.
A is the ARCHIVE attribute.
S is the SYSTEM FILE attribute.
H is the HIDDEN FILE attribute.

Obviously, if you have a file which is Read-Only, you are not going to be able to make changes or edit the contents. This is probably the number one cause of Access Violation errors.

To get rid of them, you simply need to apply the correct attribute formation so that the file is accessible to your needs.

Next Step:

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