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From Wikipedia :

CD-ROM: CD-ROM (an abbreviation of "Compact Disc read-only memory") is a Compact Disc that contains data accessible by a computer. While the Compact Disc format was originally designed for music storage and playback, the format was later adapted to hold any form of binary data. CD-ROMs are popularly used to distribute computer software, including games and multimedia applications, though any data can be stored (up to the capacity limit of a disc). Some CDs hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, whilst data (such as software or digital video) is only usable on a computer (such as PC CD-ROMs). These are called Enhanced CDs.

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Helpful Tips

Laptop The best advice is to do frequent backups.  If you have a recent backup of your data, you can rest easy.  If/when your hard drive fails, it is not a crisis since you have safe copies of all of your important data.

Don't ever try to disassemble your hard drive.  What do you expect to find in there?  No.  More than likely, you will break something and certainly you will contaminate your drive with small particles and make data recovery more difficult or impossible.  We won't open your drive and neither should you.  Only facilities that have a cleanroom should consider opening a hard drive. 

Don't hit the drive.  Don't bang it, don't beat it, don't whack it, don't drop it.  Perhaps you have experience where that helps something but it will only hurt your drive. 

If your hard drive starts making noises, don't wait.  Shut it down and have the data recovered right away.  The more you use the computer, the worse the hard drive will deteriorate.  Over time, recovery may become impossible.  

If your system crashes and you have a recovery disk, you might be inclined to use it to bring your system back to life.  This very well may be successful, but often these discs will re-image the drive which wipes out all of your data.  This puts the system back to a from-the-factory state which is before you put your files on it.  Back up your files before doing a reinstall or re-image or a system restore.  Contact us if you wish to use our services for this. 

Don't use USB flash drives as primary storage when you can avoid it.  USB flash drives (pen drives, thumb drives, pocket drives) can be very convenient.  They can also die without warning.  When you can, use them only to transport copies of data and not the only copy.  It is best to copy files to the USB flash drive.  That way, if the flash drive is damaged or lost, you still have another copy on the hard drive of a computer or two. 

Backing up your data helps you prepare for a data disaster. But what if the disaster involves a fire, tornado, or some other event that destroys your home or workplace? If your backups are stored there, then they might be destroyed along with the computer they are designed to protect. Consider storing your backups off-site. Whether that means carrying a copy with you in a USB drive or storing files remotely over the Internet, it can make all the difference.

Good Places To Backup Your Data

  • A server on your network or another computer set up with file sharing
  • A secondary hard drive installed inside your PC
  • External hard drive connected via USB or Firewire 
  • USB memory stick
  • CD-R or DVD-R
  • Tape drive
  • Internet backup service