What Happens to Harddisk on Reset

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maximus

Broken In
Hai friends
i want to know what happens when we press the reset button,is there any problem for our hardware such as hard disk or we just have to suffer the unsaved dataloss.please explain it in detail as i am confused about several myths about it.waiting for ur response thanx in advance
 

Vishal Gupta

Microsoft MVP
It should 100 % create problems coz when we press RESET button, the system is immediately restarted and it can cause damage to ur HDD! It can create BAD Sectors also...
 

Mateusz Matusiak

Right off the assembly line
Well, as far I know. Powering down and restarting your pc also damages your HDD. As it is the best for the HDD to work without any powering down all the time - lets say 3 year non-stop , then starting it twice a day (assuming that you use your pc 2 time per day).
 

chesss

mera kutch nahi ho sakta
I doubt if there is any damage to harddisk on reset. I simple reason being that I have been resetting my harddisk for 4 years now.
Though I can't be sure.. would like to know myself. Once some 'computer expert' once told me not to format my computer too much to prevent harddisk crashes :lol:
 

kalpik

In Pursuit of "Happyness"
The Head of the harddisk floats on a cussion of air. When u shutdown your pc, the normal way, the head is taken to a special location and then the air supply is stopped. But when u reset the pc, the haed drops on the disk platter. This may damage the platter. Oh and yes, performing a FULL format does reduce the hard disk's life..
 
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maximus

Broken In
kalpik said:
the head is taken to a special location and then the air supply is stopped. But when u reset the pc, the haed drops on the disk platter
Does Hard disk have an air suppling device to keep the head floating??
i heard so many abt head drops on platter,but my doubt is if it has to drop on platter on reseting.the head must have to drop somewhere on normal stopping since head is always above the platters.does this affect the head?
 

gary4gar

GaurishSharma.com
kalpik said:
Oh and yes, performing a FULL format does reduce the hard disk's life..

does formatting through right clicking on any drive in my computer cuase any harm??:confused::confused:
 

vinayasurya

Journeyman
When a harddisk is switched off its head goes to headparking zone in the harddrive. So no harm is done to harddrive physically. You may suffer data loss transfered at the time. It is same as switching off by shutdown button in windows. Windows saves contents to harddisk and prevents data loss.
 

janitha

Wise Old Owl
When shut down normally, the head goes to the landing/parking zone. But when reset, it does not and may touch and scratch the platter and cause bad sectors or other problems. So reset only as a last resort.

For more detailed info go to the following site.

*www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/actParking.html
 
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maximus

Broken In
thanx janitha
u cleared my doubt.
from that article i understand that new technology hard drives have auto parking facility which can park the head to landing zone even if we power off and there is another great technology developed by IBM called load/unload ramp which is now used in hitachi hard drives (see) ,i dont know if there is any another hard drives support it,if so post it.so i think new era has come where the reset doesnt affect the harddisk.

correct me if i was mistaken and if there is any other problem we havent seen, please post it..
 
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kalpik

In Pursuit of "Happyness"
gary4gar said:
does formatting through right clicking on any drive in my computer cuase any harm??:confused::confused:
Yup.. But its not a problem if u select quick format.
 

casanova

The Frozen Nova
yup, i havent faced any problems even though I have repartitioned my hard disk many times, quick/full format many times.
So no probs been faced yet.
 

kalpik

In Pursuit of "Happyness"
Im not saying that a full format will damage your disk.. It just reduces life. Ok, ill explain why. When u do a quick format, only the metadata is erased. Metadata is kinda like the table of contents of the hard disk. So when u erase the metadata, the whole data of the harddisk is lost. Note that metadata constitutes only a *very small* portion of the hard disk. Whereas, when u do a full format, it erases the whole hard disk, each and every track and sector. So quick format=less read/write and full format=WAY more read/write..

Hope this explains..!
 
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maximus

Broken In
i am just saying that formating via right clicking and using administrative tools are the same.i didnt meant formating is ok for HDD.

kalpik said:
Whereas, when u do a full format, it erases the whole hard disk, each and every track and sector. So quick format=less read/write and full format=WAY more read/write..
but i have a doubt how can formatting cause bad sector on hard disk since it is only read and write the entire disk and while reading/writing, head is in a air cushion
please discuss about the problems on restart on new generation drive which has load/unload ramp if any
 

kalpik

In Pursuit of "Happyness"
Bad sectors are not always due to scratch on platter. They can occur when the sector looses its magnetism too..
 

vinayasurya

Journeyman
One question to janitha. How the hardware knows you shutdown using windows shutdown button? I think the head will go parking zone even if u reset.
 

janitha

Wise Old Owl
vinayasurya said:
One question to janitha. How the hardware knows you shutdown using windows shutdown button? I think the head will go parking zone even if u reset.

When you reset, it is instantaneous restarting without the drive spinning down and the head going to rest in the landing/parking zone.
 

chesss

mera kutch nahi ho sakta
Whereas, when u do a full format, it erases the whole hard disk, each and every track and sector. So quick format=less read/write and full format=WAY more read/write..
you can hardly say this reduces life of the hard-disk, thats like saying benchmarking would reduce life of a harddisk.

btw great info on resetting guys, thanks. Going a little offtopic, what happens to ram when the reset button is pressed. And how are things different in pressing reset and just killing power( poweroff button) ?
 
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