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Device configuration overlay (DCO) is a hidden area on many of today's hard disk drives (HDDs). Usually when information is stored in either the DCO or host protected area (HPA), it is not accessible by the BIOS (or UEFI), OS, or the user. However, certain tools can be used to modify the HPA or DCO.
Some vendor-specific external drive enclosures (e.g. Maxtor, owned by Seagate since 2006) are known to use HPA to limit the capacity of unknown replacement hard drives installed into the enclosure. When this occurs, the drive may appear to be limited in size (e.g. 128 GB), which can look like a BIOS or dynamic drive overlay (DDO) problem.
The lead-out area is not typically directly accessible with consumer DVD-ROM hardware. Furthermore, the key for the security sector is located in the sector's raw header. This header information, unlike the raw headers of CD-ROM disks, is not accessible by default on nearly all DVD-ROM drives.
A hard disk drive failure occurs when a hard disk drive malfunctions and the stored information cannot be accessed with a properly configured computer. A hard disk failure may occur in the course of normal operation, or due to an external factor such as exposure to fire or water or high magnetic fields , or suffering a sharp impact or ...
A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used. A driver communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects.
Disk Diagnostics detect impending hard disk drive failures and prompt the user to perform backups, and to repair or replace the hard disk drive after Windows Vista detects a hard disk problem. [14] Memory Diagnostics (comprising the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool) check for issues caused by random access memory modules. [14]
In 2008, Hard Disk Sentinel DOS version was released in different formats on bootable pen drive, CD, floppy. Usable when no operating system installed (or if the system is not bootable otherwise) to detect and display temperature, health status of IDE, SATA hard disk drives and with limited AHCI controller support.
MS-DOS/PC DOS versions 4.0 and earlier assign letters to all of the floppy drives before considering hard drives, so a system with four floppy drives would call the first hard drive E:. Starting with DOS 5.0, the system ensures that drive C: is always a hard disk, even if the system has more than two physical floppy drives.