Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices

Windows uses plug and play technology to automatically install the appropriate drivers for hardware. This usually works, but in some cases, the hardware is either not detected or an appropriate driver is not found. To manually install the hardware use the add hardware wizard and supply the appropriate driver from the manufacturer’s disk or from the manufacturer’s web site. To view all installed devices on the computer, open device manager in the computer management snap in. Devices can be viewed by type on by connection, and hidden devices can also be shown. The device manager can be used to troubleshoot devices, install drivers, update drivers, roll back drivers and disable or enable devices.

To keep your computer up to date with the latest patches and fixes from microsoft , enable automatic updates. Windows update was introduced in the previous versions of windows, but in windows xp , the ability to schedule updates has been added. Also remember to configure driver signing on your system to prevent users from installing unsigned drivers. Driver signing can be set to warn the user of potential hazards, block the user from installing unsigned driver or ignore any unsigned driver and install it anyway.

There are two types of disks -basic and dynamic. Dynamic disks allows you to create volumes, which can span multiple physical drives and can be fault tolerant. The volume type that you can create on dynamic disks are simple volumes, spanned volumes, stripped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. Raid-5 volumes and mirrored volumes are fault tolerant, and the data can be recovered if one drive in the volume fails.

Encryption and compression are features of the NTFS file systems, which you must know how to effectively use. Files and folders can be compressed to save disk space. It is recommended that folders be compressed , not files, and that the display colour is changed to allow for easier viewing. Compression is not supported on FAT Volumes.File and folders can also be encrypted to protect the contents; however a file cannot be encrypted.

How to Install Your Computer Speakers

Once we have the installation disc that comes with the computer speakers. Simply insert the CD in to your computers CD drive. You will then find a setup program load up. Hit install or English setup, or whatever is required and follow the on screen instructions. There is nothing difficult about installing computer speakers. When the setup program asks you to plug in your speakers, do so at the prompt, making sure they are powered on and ready to go.

Make sure you plug the speakers wire in to the right port in the back of your computer, Although this may sound like common sense, many people plug there speakers in to the microphone slot and complain there speakers are broken, or wonder why they simply don’t work.

Once the installation program is complete, you will likely need to restart your computer for the hardware and software changes to take effect and be added correctly to your computer. Once you have restarted the computer, your new computer speakers should be up and running, however you may want to go in to the sound program under programs. In here, you will be able to adjust various speakers’ settings until you get the best possible sound for your computer speakers. Once you have adjust the sound setting, try sticking on a movie or a computer game, and see if the sound is suited to your liking. It is worth spending some time getting to know your sound program so you can set different profiles for different occasions. For example, if Sunday is your day of music, then you may want to set a profile with settings specific to that. If another day is for gaming or movies, you will likely want or have different sound settings for the best sound experience for gaming or movies.

Be sure to check out our website below for everything relate to computer speakers. We offer the latest news and articles relating to computer speakers.

Hard Disc Fundamentals

Starting of HDD:

Hard disc drive, it is the magnetic device used to store soft copy of data in the form of 0’s and 1’s. Specific drivers are used to retrieve back the data in a specified format. Magnetic hard disks are used from 1956 onwards. On that day, the size of the hard disks is very huge for a small amount of storage and it also takes more time to store and retrieve. But today we are using very compact, high capacity, high latency hard disks for our systems.

Physical representation of HDD:

The user data / information are stored on a disc’s surface media. The media is a specially coated surface. Each media surface is divided into tracks and sectors. These sectors are often called "blocks". Tracks are often referred to as cylinders. The Track, Sector separations of the hard disk are shown below. The Cylinder, Head, Sector (CHS) gives a physical location.

Logical representation of HDD:

Hard disks use circular hard platters to store data on. Each platter has two surfaces. Both sides of the media are used to store information. If each surface had 4 tracks and 4 sectors means there would be 32 sectors, or blocks. Each surface requires a "head" to read/write the information. Surfaces are often referred to as the "head". A cylinder is the area that a head can write to or read from without being positioned to another track.

Take a hard disk has two surfaces/head; four sectors/blocks then the logical representation of that disk will be like this figure 3. In that figure, the two heads of that disk represented as 0 and 1. The four cylinders/tracks and sectors are represented by 0 to 3. So for, each surface has 16 logical sectors/blocks that is named as Logical block Addressing (LBA).

The Host and the file system using this LBA only for HDD operation like reading, writing the data, searching and seek etc., But for heads and media, the hard disk driver circuits convert the LBA to CHS (Cylinder, Head, Sector).

Reading and Writing in HDD:

Hard Disk Drive is a digital data storage device that reads and writes data via magnetization changes of a magnetic storage disk. This includes one or more randomly accessible rotatable storage media, or disks. In a magnetic disk drive, the data is encoded as bits of information using magnetic field reversals grouped in tracks on the magnetic hard surface of rotating disks. It also includes a transducer supported by a hydrodynamic bearing which flies above each magnetic disk. The transducer head supported by an actuator arm is used to read data from or write data to the disks. Hard disk drives are an indispensable component in most modern computing/data handling systems.

Hard disk drives are commonly utilized to store relatively large amounts of data in today’s computer systems like desk. If the capacity of the disk is more, the computer can store and access more data. In a computer, a hard disk drive is connected to the central processing unit (CPU) by means of the system bus. Computer architectures have a motherboard which includes a central processing unit and the system bus to which various peripherals, including a hard disk drive, are connected.

In a hard disk drive, data signals are read from and written to a rotating disk by a head, which is moved substantially with respect to the disk. The head assembly facilitates reading and writing of information on a surface of a rotating magnetic disk. The interconnect assembly includes a plurality of transmission elements, such as wires or traces, for transmitting data to and from the head assembly. The suspension assembly positions the head assembly at a generally constant distance away from the moving surface of the rotating disk. When the electric power is turned off to end the use of a computer, a driving voltage to a spindle motor also stops so that the speed of the hard disk rotated by the spindle motor gradually decreases. At this point, the magnetic head in the state of flying above the hard disk by the flow of air descends onto the surface of the hard disk.

How to Update Drivers on Your Computer

Drivers, as the name implies, is the driving force of the apparatus we are using. Basically, it is a piece of software, or a small program that controls a device. Every piece of device we use or connect to our computer must have its own driver for it to work. Examples of these devices are printers, cameras, disk drives, and even keyboards. However most of the time, for the keyboard and mouse, the driver is automatically loaded and installed on the computer’s operating system.

For the video card and sound card though, we may have to pull out that disk installer that came with our computer (the motherboard disk) when we first purchased it (that is if your video and sound card is a part of your motherboard). If in case we purchased the cards separately from your motherboard, we may have to use the disk provided along with those cards as they have the drivers saved in those disks.

Now, if it was that easy then why do we need to update our drivers? Well, there are times that unfortunate accidents happen to our computers that may cause them to work silly or be dysfunctional. When that happens, a usual quick fix for this is to disable and then re-enable the driver. If that doesn’t work, uninstall and then reinstall the device. Not working yet? Check the version that you have and then check the latest version on the internet. Do they match? If yes, call a resident technician to have them verify it. If the answer is no, then update the driver. Usually that fixes the issue.

First, we must check if our drivers need a boost. And we can do that by pulling up our Device Manager Window. Now, there are three ways for that. One is to pull up My Computer, and then at the left part of that new screen, under System Tasks, we must click on View System Information. Clicking on that will pull up our System Properties Window. Once we are already on that screen, select the Hardware Tab and then click on the Device Manager window. Viola, the Device Manager Window is up.

Another way for us to pull it up is by right-clicking on My Computer, select Properties, and then in the System Properties Window, select Hardware, and then Device Manager. Still frustrated with the multiple steps? Okay, here’s the run command shortcut, devmgmt.msc. We can use that by clicking on Start, selecting Run, and then typing that in the Run box before clicking on OK.

Where to Get Software Drivers

For a long time before the Internet came along you could have lost your software drivers disk and you were lost with an unusable computer peripheral or if you were really unlucky, more than one.

These day’s your computer doesn’t have to be a computer that starts up, runs, edits video’s or whatever you wish to do with it and all the help of the internet or as some people call it, the World Wide Web.

1st Option

If you don’t have the Internet, then get a family member or a friend to go online and do a search on Google, for example, I have a printer "Epson Stylus c86" that my Father give to me but he never gave me the software driver disk, now I can go along to Google and type in "Epson Stylus c86 Printer drivers" and I’ll be taken to the search page where near the top of the listings, if not at the top, will be the Epson website, epson.co.uk, I would then look at their support pages for the relevant driver for my particular printer.

2nd Option

I really like this option, as it houses a lot of software drivers in the one place.

I became a member of this particular website because I was looking for a driver for something like my Father’s scanner, I had done the 1st Option as mentioned above for the this specific driver, but it turned out to be a very hard one to track down.