Magnetic Storage

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Magnetic Storage
• The Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
• How Disk Space is Organized
• Hard Drive Size Limitations
• Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• How to solve hard drive installation
problems

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 The Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
Hard Drive
• Primary computer storage device
– Secondary Memory
• Spins, reads and writes one or more fixed disk
platters
• Storage medium in desktop and laptop computers
• The term “hard” differentiates high-capacity rigid
disks made aluminum or glass from low-capacity
floppy disks made of plastic
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First Microcomputer Hard Disk Seagate introduced the first
hard disk for personal computers in 1979. At 5MB, the ST506
held 10 times as much as the RAMAC at a fraction of its size.
(Image courtesy of Seagate Technology, Inc.)

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 The Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
• A sealed metal housing.
– Protection against dust particles
• An electrical motor connected to a spindle
– Spends as many as 8 magnetically coated
platters
• Today’s platters are coated with an alloy about three
millionths of an inch thick
– Several thousand revolutions/minute
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 How a Hard Disk Drive Works
• Logic board receives commands from the
drive’s controller.
– Managed by the operating system and BIOS
– Translates commands into voltage fluctuations
• Forces the head actuator to move read/write heads
– Makes sure the spindle turning the platters is at
a constant speed
– Tells the drive head to read or write
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 How a Hard Disk Drive Works
• A head actuator pushes and pulls the
read/write heads across the surfaces of the
platters with critical precision.
– Aligns heads with the tracks

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 How a Hard Disk Drive Works
• Read/write heads slide in unison across
both the top and bottom surfaces of the
platters.
– Write the data coming from the disk controller
by aligning the magnetic fields of particles
– Read the data by detecting the polarities of
particles that have already been aligned

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Actuator Spindle
Platters or disks

Read/write head
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•Have one, two, or more platters
•Stack together Platters or disks
•Spin in unison

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How Disk Space is Organized
When a disk is manufactured,
• Its surface is on a large area.
• An organizational structure must be
imposed that uniquely names each
physical location on the disk
– Drive controller can specify the exact physical
spot where a given bit of data should be written
or retrieved
– Cylinders, Heads, Sectors , and Tracks
• CHS
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How Disk Space is Organized
• Each side or surface of one hard drive
platter is called a head.
– The number of heads in the same as the number of disk
platter surfaces available for writing data
– Almost all magnetic disks are double-sided
– There is a separated read/write head for each side.
– The numbering starts at the bottom side of the bottom
platter with 0.
– An average number of heads for a hard disk today is
16.

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How Disk Space is Organized
• A track is a combination of the cylinder
and head location over the writeable
portion of the hard disk.
– In a multiplatter or multiside disk, each
side has its own separate tracks
• A 1.44MB floppy disk has 40 tracks per side
• A large hard disk can have tens of thousands

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How Disk Space is Organized
• A sector is the smallest unit that can be
read from or written to a disk.
– Pie slices made by lines that cross over the
track lines.
– Each sector holds exactly 512 bytes of data
– Modern 1.44MB floppy disks use 36
sectors/track
– A typical IDE hard drive usually has 63
sectors/track
– A SCSI hard drive can have 600 or more
sectors per track
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How Disk Space is Organized
• Cylinders are the concentric writeable
tracks found on the surface of the
platters that make up the hard drive.
– The stack of tracks accessible at a given
position constitutes a cylinder.
– The number of cylinders a drive has in the
same as the number of tracks on a single
disk side
– All areas of a disk at a certain in/out head
position on all disk sides combined
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 How Disk Space is Organized
Calculating the capacity of the drive

Cylinders x heads x sectors/track x 512 bytes/sector

Divide by
– 1024 = KB
– 1048576 = MB
– 1073741824 = GB (Typical size)

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
Three possible settings in most BIOS Setup
programs (translations)
1. CHS (Cylinder, Head and Sector) Mode
or Normal Mode
2. Extended CHS Mode (ECHS) or Large
Mode
3. Logical Block Addressing (LBA)
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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
1. CHS (Cylinder, Head and Sector) Mode or
Normal Mode
– The addressing is the same coming into and going out
of the BIOS
• Straight pass-through
– This setting turns off any translation and limits the
drive size to 528MB
• A drive can have no more than 1,024 cylinders, 16 heads, 63
sectors per track and 512 bytes per sector

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
2. Extended CHS Mode (ECHS) or Large Mode
– This was the original type of translation
– Used for drives between 504 MB and 8.4 GB
– The hard drive controller sends the logical geometry
to the system BIOS
• Logical geometry presents information not exactly equal to
the physical geometry; yields the actual capacity of the drive
• Controller BIOS masks the actual organization of the drive
from system BIOS and software (White Lie)
– Large mode is not as popular as LBA
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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
3. Logical Block Addressing (LBA)
– LBA is the most popular way of dealing with
large drives if the OS is using system BIOS to
access the drive.
• Most popular way of dealing with drives larger than 504
MB
– Only way of dealing with drives larger than
8.4 GB.
• Drives larger than 504 MB are called large-capacity drives
• Motherboard BIOS that support them is called enhanced
BIOS
– Simply views the drive as a long list of sequential numbers

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
You may need a BIOS update if;
• Your BIOS was made before 1996
– Does not support ECHS or LBA
• A BIOS between 1996 and 1998
– Might support LBA; but not have Enhanced
BIOS Services for Disk Drives support

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
Enhanced BIOS Services for Disk Drives
• Introduced in 1998
• Breaks the 8 GB barrier
• Supports drives up to 18 trillion gigabytes
• A BIOS feature; not a drive feature

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
Device Drivers
• Used to bypass the system BIOS
• Communicates directly with the hard drive
controller
– Windows NT/2000/XP uses this method
– Windows 9x has its own 32-bit, protected-mode
device drivers to access hard drives
• Can also support system BIOS

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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
If you install an old drive that has been using
Standard CHS into a new system that
autodetects it and sets it up to use LBA,
you could lose access to the existing data
on that drive. In such case you would
manually configure the drive in BIOS to
use Standard CHS, retrieve its data and
then switch it over to LBA and repartition
it.
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 Hard Drive Size Limitations
Other BIOS settings
• Multisector transfers
– Specifies the number of sectors in each block transfer
from the hard drive to memory
• Disabled, 2, 4, 8, or 16
– 16 is usually the right setting
• Self-Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)
– A technology for monitoring drive performance and
reporting any irregularities or changes that might signal
impending failure.

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 Hard Drive Performance
Timing
• Access time
– The average amount of time it takes for the read/write
head to move to the requested sector
• The sum of seek time and latency period
– Seek time
» The average time it takes the read/write head to move to the
requested track
– Latency period
» The time it takes for the requested sector to spin underneath
the read/write head after the read/write head moves to the
requested track

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 Hard Drive Performance
Timing
• Data Transfer rate
– Determined according to the method by which
data are transferred to and from the platters.
– Bits/second or Bytes/second
– Dependent on the speed of the disk and the
density of the data on the disk

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 Formatting
• Low-Level Formatting
– The process that defines the tracks and sectors
on the platters of the hard drive
• High-Level Formatting
– The process of writing the file system structure
on the disk so that it can be used to store
programs and data
– The disk can be made bootable by copying the
operating system’s boot files
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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• EIDE (Enhanced Integrated Device Electronics)
– ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
– An extension of IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics)
– Standard defining how hard drives relate to the system
• Tape drives, CD-ROM and Zip drives
– First standard was ATA-2
• Allows up to four devices
– ATAPI Advanced Technology Attachment Packet
Interface)

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• EIDE
– IDE/ATA (1988)
• Speeds range from 2.1MB/s to 8.3 MB/s
– Limited to no more than 528 MB
– Supports PIO and DMA
– 40-pin ribbon cable
– Introduced the Identify Drive command (autodetect)
– ATA-2/Fast ATA (1996)
• Speeds up to 16.6 MB/s
– Breaks the 528 MB barrier
– Allows up to four IDE devices
– Supports PIO and DMA transfer modes
• ATA-3 (Improved version of ATA-2) (1997)
– SMART
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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• EIDE (continued)
– Ultra ATA, Fast ATA-2, Ultra DMA, DMA/33
• ATA-4
• Speeds up to 33.3 MB/s
– Defined a new DMA mode but only supports slower PIO modes
– Supported 80-wire ribbon caable
– Introduced ATAPI standard
– Ultra ATA/66, Ultra DMA/66
• ATA-5
• Speeds up to 66.6 MB/s
– Uses an 80-conductor cable
» Improves signal integrity 32
 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• EIDE (continued)
– Ultra ATA/100

• Speeds up to 100 MB/s

– Uses an 80-conductor cable
– Ultra ATA/133
• Speeds up to 133 MB/s
– Supports drives larger than 137 GB
– Uses an 80-conductor cable
– ATA/ATAPI-6
• A part of the ATA/133 standard that supports drives larger
than 137 GB.
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Features 60/80/100/120G Available
60G formatted Capacity Per disk
Ultra ATA - 100
FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) Motor
Load/Unload Technology
GMR Head Technology with Wireless Suspension Design
SilentSeek
Silentec Hybrid Latch Technology

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• EIDE Cabling Methods
– Parallel ATA (PATA)
• 80-conductor
• Looks similar to the 40-conductor
– Fits the same 40-pin IDE connector
– Has twice the number of conductors when compared to the 40-
conductor
– Serial ATA cable
• Fewer pins than a parallel cable
• Fasted than ATA/100
• More expensive

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Hard Disk Drive Interfaces

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• Transfer Modes
– Obsolete
• Programmed Input/Output
• DMA
– UltraDMA (UDMA)
• Also known as UltraATA

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• Transfer Modes
– Programmed Input/Output
• Five different modes (0 - 4)
– PIO-0 (3.3 MB/s)
– PIO-4 (16.67 MB/s)

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• Transfer Modes
– Direct Memory Addressing (DMA)
• Regular
– Uses DMA controller on the mother board
• Bus Mastering
– Higher speed DMA functionality built into the south
bridge of the chipset
– Takes advantage of the PCI bus for DMA transfers
» Modes 0 - 2 (4.16 - 16.67 MB/s)

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
Northbridge Connects CPU to:
RAM, AGP bus, PCI Express bus, Built-in
display Adapter

Southbridge Connects CPU to:

ATA (IDE) Drives, USB bus, FireWire bus,
Serial port, Parallel port, Built-in audio,
ISA bus (earlier PCs)
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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
• Transfer Modes
– UltraDMA (UDMA)
• Also known as UltraATA
• A high-speed transfer mode for disk drives that
improves upon DMA and allows transfer rates of up
to 100MB/s
• Enable UltraDMA and it does the rest

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 Hard Disk Drive Interfaces
When a modern BIOS autodetects a modern
IDE drive, it will set the PIO/DMA to
Disabled because it employs UltraDMA
instead. You should not attempt to enable
PIO or DMA on such a drive because it will
only slow it down.

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 Reading a File from Disk
• User makes a request
– Chooses Drive
• Operating System checks Virtual File
Allocation Table (VFAT)
– FAT16
– FAT32
– NTFS

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 Reading a File from Disk
• From the VFAT it gets the address of the
first cluster that contains the beginning of
the file along with addresses of any other
clusters that might be used to store the file.
VFAT Cluster Address
File 1st Cluster Cluster Track Sectors
[Link] 3 3 1 2,3,4,5
[Link] 4 4 1 6,7,8,9
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Rock.mp3 5 5 2 1,2,3,4
 Reading a File from Disk
• OS provides address information to BIOS
• BIOS issues commands to the disk drive’s
controller
• Controller moves the read/write head over the
clusters containing the file.
– Correct order to read the file from the beginning to the
end.
• Data is read from the disk through the BIOS.
• BIOS places data in RAM

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Purchasing a Hard Drive
• What type of drive do you need?
– What type of controller do you have?
– SCSI is faster and more reliable.
– SCSI is more expensive.
• Do you have any more connections on your
controller?
– Most computers have one or two IDE controllers with two
connections on each controller.
– SCSI will allow up to seven devices to be connected to one
controller.
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IDE Hard Drive Installation—
Hardware
1. Screw in the hard drive to the open brackets (rails)
in the case. This step sometimes requires you to
create a place to house your hard drive. If the
computer case cannot accept another hard drive,
consider purchasing a different case for the
computer.
2. Connect the ribbon cable to the adapter card,
lining up pin 1 with the red band on the ribbon
cable.
3. Insert a power cord coming off the power supply
to the hard drive. 47
 IDE Hard Drive Installation—
Hardware (cont.)
4. IDE drives must be defined in the CMOS SETUP. Some
newer motherboards have a built-in AUTO-DETECT
feature that correctly identifies the new hard drive. Older
computers require you to manually define the hard drive
in SETUP.
5. If it’s an older hard drive, use either Type 47 or User
Defined when setting up the drive. It’s important to add
the cylinders, heads and sector information included in
the drive. This information usually can be found on the
back of the hard drive.
6. After you restart the computer, the system BIOS
recognizes the drive. Next, run the DOS FDISK program
to define partitions, and then FORMAT the unit.
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Installing a Second IDE Hard
Drive
1. On the second drive, set the DIP switches so that
the second drive is set as the “slave” to the older
“master” drive.
2. Screw in the hard drive to the open brackets (rails)
in the case. This step sometimes requires you to
create a place to house your hard drive. If the
computer case cannot accept another hard drive,
consider purchasing a different case for the
computer.
3. Connect the ribbon cable to the hard drive, lining
up pin 1 with the red band on the ribbon cable.
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Installing a Second IDE Hard
Drive (cont.)
4. Insert a power cord coming off the power supply to
the hard drive. IDE drives must be defined in the
CMOS SETUP. Some newer motherboards have a
built-in AUTO-DETECT feature that correctly
identifies the new hard drive. Older computers require
you to manually define the hard drive in SETUP.
5. If it’s an older hard drive, use either Type 47 or User
Defined when setting up the drive. It’s important to
add the cylinders, heads and sector information
included in the drive. This information usually can be
found on the back of the hard drive.

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Installing a Second IDE Hard
Drive (cont.)

[Link] you restart the computer, the system

BIOS recognizes the drive. Next, run the
DOS FDISK program to define partitions,
and then FORMAT the unit.

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Hard Disk Partitioning
• Reduces wasted space on larger hard drives.
– Cluster size can be as large as 64K.
– When a file is written, it will consume an entire
cluster, even if it is only a few bytes in size.
– An average document file is 14K, but it will use
an entire cluster. On a very large drive, this
would waste 50K.

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[Link] and ScanDisk
• Prior to MS-DOS 6.0, you could use a
utility called [Link]. This utility is
used to recover lost allocation units and to
repair cross-linked files.
• ScanDisk utility does the same as
CHKDSK, but it also includes a program
that will scan the surface of your disk for
defects and attempt to repair them.
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Defrag
• Defrag is a hard disk utility that gets rid of
any file fragments that are on the drive.
• Fragmented files slow down hard drive
access.
• Defrag can move all the free space together
on the drive. This is very helpful when
creating swapfiles.

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 Troubleshooting IDE Hard
Drives—Possible Causes
 Hard drive configuration in CMOS is incorrect
 Virus on hard drive
 Incorrect or loose cabling of the hard drive to the
controller
 Corrupt or defective boot sector or partition
 MS-DOS corrupted
 Invalid entry in the [Link] or
[Link] file
 Hardware conflict caused by the addition of a new
piece of hardware
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 Hard Drive Error Codes and
Possible Solutions
 Hard disk configuration error
– Check CMOS
– Loose cable
 Hard disk 0 failure
– Check CMOS
– Check power supply to the hard drive
 Hard disk controller failure
– Loose controller cable
 Invalid drive specification
– Check CMOS

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Hard Drive Error Codes and
Possible Solutions (cont.)
 Error selecting drive
– Check CMOS
– Check FDISK partition
 Invalid command interpreter
– Check CMOS
– Reload MS-DOS to the boot sector
 No boot device available
– Check CMOS
– Reload MS-DOS to the boot sector
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 Hard Drive Error Codes and
Possible Solutions (cont.)

 Missing operating system

– Check CMOS
– Reload MS-DOS to the boot sector
 General Failure reading drive
C: or Not ready reading drive C:
– Check CMOS
– Run CHKDSK or SCANDISK

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Floppy Drives

• First PC floppy drive could hold only 160K.

• PC/XT came with a 5.25-inch 360K.
• Largest capacity for a 5.25-inch is 1.2MB.
• Do not attempt to format a 360K diskette to
1.2MB—you will have multiple bad sectors,
and if you write data to the disk, you run the
risk of losing the data.
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Floppy Drives (cont.)
• The first 3.5-inch was introduced in the late
1980s and could hold 720KB.
• A hard plastic case and a spring-loaded cover
protects the disk. This results in a longer life
expectancy over the 5.25-inch floppy disks.
• 3.5 inch diskettes can now store up to
2.88MB, but the norm is 1.44MB.

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