Refreshing data on a hard drive (to prevent it from "evaporating" over time)

S

soyo

New Member
Hello.

I was recently made aware, that the data on the disc will vanish overtime due to the fact they are stored in a magnetic way, if the disc is not used internaly. This is the case with my 500GB Seagate disc, that I consider as data storage, and which is just laying on the shelf in a closet.

I wanted to ask what I need to do to prevent it. Do I need only to READ the data off the disc, or do I have to RE-WRITE them to prevent this from happening ? If I only need to read them, is there a command in windows XP terminal, that I could use to do this ? I found a command for MAC to read the whole disc:
sudo cat /dev/rdisk0> /dev/null
but I can't find similar for Windows XP.

The best soslution for me though, would be to use the software to scan the disc, as I want to do it from time to time, to check if everything with the disc is ok. So, would scanning of the whole disc using some software (to find bad secotrs) like for example "Active@ Hard Disk Monitor" do the trick ? If it would coule be great, as I would cook 2 dishes on a 1 stove.

Thanks guys
 
Last edited:
I have drives that are at least 15 years old that the data is still intact.
I am not sure about what you read.
I'm sure others will say something about it.
 
Take it with a grain of salt.
That would mean you would have to do your OS also as that is not rewritten every time you use it.
How many 10 year old comps have you fired up that still work?
Also if your worried you should be doing hard copy back-ups anyway.
 
The writer of the article must have his facts wrong, there are plenty of people here who can tell you first hand that data on a hard drive does not expire in a year and a half. Like Maxx, I've accessed hard drives that hadn't been used for many times that long and the data was still intact.
 
MyCattMaxx said:
Take it with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...
More and more guys say that, so it seems that's indeed the case.

That would mean you would have to do your OS also as that is not rewritten every time you use it.
Click to expand...
Well, if we speak now hypotheticaly, cause I came to a point I believe this isn't true what is written in that article, it is said, that if I have a HDD connected to PC, and it's exploited normaly, then the problem doesn't exist here. The problem only exist when I have a HDD that is stored and not used for a long time.

Also if your worried you should be doing hard copy back-ups anyway.
Click to expand...
Not worried ;) Just trying to be smart by being carefull, and investigating what I've heard.

cheers

PohTayToez said:
The writer of the article must have his facts wrong, there are plenty of people here who can tell you first hand that data on a hard drive does not expire in a year and a half. Like Maxx, I've accessed hard drives that hadn't been used for many times that long and the data was still intact.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. I get this reaction from couple other guys on the web, and it seems that "issue" is really not real.

cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top