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Enlarge Image Laser-induced switching. Experimental images showing two small domains with magnetic orientation up (white) and down (black). Each laser pulse reverses the direction repeatedly. Credit: Johan Mentink; Richard Evans (inset) An ultrashort heat pulse can predictably flip a bit in a magnetic memory like the one in your hard drive. The surprising effect could ultimately lead to magnetic memories hundreds of times faster and more energy efficient than today's hard drives. It also provides a way to control the direction in which a bit is magnetized without applying something else that has a direction, such as a magnetic...

A team of scientists have published a new way of using heat to store data magnetically, which could increase the speed of hard drives over a hundredfold. Conventional drives use electromagnetism to selectively change the polarity of points on a drive, representing a one or a zero. But according to research published in Nature Communications, the team used a high-powered laser to write data onto a special gadolinium and iron storage unit in a fraction of the time, using much less energy.One pulse for 0, two for 1 “Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic...

An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology. The researchers found they could record information using only heat - a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too. The results of the research, which was led by the University of York's Department of Physics, are reported in the February edition of Nature Communications. York physicist Thomas Ostler said: "Instead of using a magnetic field to...

Superman's memory crystals may become reality in computers Computers may soon be saving their data onto hard drives made of glass following research by British scientists who have developed a way of storing information similar to the "memory crystals" seen in the Superman films. By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent 9:45AM BST 14 Aug 2011 Researchers at Southampton University used lasers to rearrange the atoms in pieces of glass, turning it into new type of computer memory. They claim the glass memory is far more stable and resilient than current types of hard-drive memory, which have a limited lifespan of a...

The backstory on Weiner’s implosion So the Democratic leadership has called on Anthony Weiner to resign, in the wake of news that he had connected with a 17 year old girl through social media. The family has claimed that nothing was untoward, but suddenly, a fusillade of statements came from Dem leaders today demanding he resign. Here’s what happened, according to a senior Democratic aide. Nancy Pelosi had been privately urging Weiner to resign and seek treatment for days, the aide says. But he told her today that he would take a temporary leave of absence and seek treatment. Once...

DEVELOPING: NEW CASTLE, Del. -- Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner. Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl's home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl's mother about the daughter's contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later. A FoxNews.com reporter was at the home when the police arrived. The girl, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, told FoxNews.com, "I'm...

Seagate has acquired Samsung Electronics’ hard disk drive (HDD) operations for $1.37 billion in a move that boils the market down to two players. Seagate and Western Digital now control 90 percent of the HDD market with Toshiba a distant third. Under the terms of the deal, Samsung will lump its HDD unit into Seagate in exchange for a cash and stock deal worth $1.375 billion. Samsung will own nearly 10 percent of Seagate and the two companies will cross-license patents. Samsung will also provide NAND flash memory for Seagate’s solid-state drives. In addition, Seagate will supply drives for Samsung’s...

Trying to find out which software is actually good data wipe software to clean up a hard drive for installation of new OS.

February 19, 2011 Can You Frisk a Hard Drive? By DAVID K. SHIPLER /snip And there is where concerns have developed about invasions of privacy, for the most complete records on the travelers may be the ones they are carrying: their laptop computers full of professional and personal e-mail messages, photographs, diaries, legal documents, tax returns, browsing histories and other windows into their lives far beyond anything that could be, or would be, stuffed into a suitcase for a trip abroad. Those revealing digital portraits can be immensely useful to inspectors, who now hunt for criminal activity and security threats...

How did the Recovery Partition move from one hard drive to another?

I need the external HD for back up. My internal hard drive is 120 GB and I have never used half. Also, Can I back up 2 computers (about same size) with one external HD? Do they come with an and auto backup feature. Any brand recommendations or advice always appreciated.

Freepers. Please help. I have a hard drive which came from a crashed motherboard comptuer. It allows me to access all folders on the hard drive when set as a slave, but will not let me access the owner folder telling me it has zere (0) bytes and is not accessible. However, Malwarebytes.org's program will scan the hard drive owner folder and shows all the subfolders and files to be there. How can I can I open that folder to get those files? Thanks in advance, Freeper computer whizzes.

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors. The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President. Because the staff maintained White House entry information and electronic address books, the external drive contains personally...

A massive amount of sensitive, national security-related information from the Clinton administration has gone missing from the national archives. The Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told congressional committee staffers Tuesday that a hard drive containing over a terabyte of information -- the equivalent of millions of books--went missing from the NARA facility in College Park, Md., sometime between October 2008 and March 2009. The Department of Justice and the Secret Service are conducting an investigation, but it's so far unclear whether the drive was lost as the result of a crime or an accident. That...

Sensitive data detailing launch procedures for a US military missile air defence system have been found on a second-hand computer hard drive bought on eBay. More than 300 hard disks were studied and researchers uncovered other sensitive information including bank account details, medical records, confidential business plans, financial company data, personal id numbers, and job descriptions. The drives were bought from the UK, America, Germany, France and Australia through computer auctions, computer fairs and on the online auction site eBay. The exercise was carried out by BT's Security Research Centre in collaboration with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith...

BELLEFONTE — Before he disappeared April 15, 2005, former District Attorney Ray Gricar used his home computer to search the Internet for information on “how to wreck a hard drive,” “how to fry a hard drive,” and “water damage to a notebook computer.” Tuesday, one day before the fourth anniversary of Gricar’s disappearance, Bellefonte Police Det. Matthew Rickard released information that raises the question as to why Gricar might have wanted to destroy that hard drive. Gricar, who was planning to retire in eight months, went for a drive through Brush Valley, toward Lewisburg, on April 15, 2005, and hasn’t...

There is a slow but steady encroachment on our privacy by government. It often comes with rational and admirable cover terms for a hidden agenda. A recent comment by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, during his conformation hearings, broached the subject of taxing car mileage based on GPS tracking. An immediate hue and cry went up from privacy organizations which saw it as an Orwellian intrusion. It was dropped like a hot potato by the White House. The EU is currently looking at another

Toshiba announced today the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSD's based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND. In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. These 2nd generation SSD's offer increased capacity and performance for notebook computers. They utilize an advanced MLC controller that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to...

A couple of years ago, Michael T. Arnold landed at the Los Angeles International Airport after a 20-hour flight from the Philippines. He had his laptop with him, and a customs officer took a look at what was on his hard drive. Clicking on folders called “Kodak pictures” and “Kodak memories,” the officer found child pornography. The search was not unusual: the government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is...

My 200gig HD is partitioned as 2 drives, one for the OS and one for storage. Friday night I put the 200 into an external HD enclosure and since then the second partition will not show up.Is there a way to get that information back?

A small number of Seagate's Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 consumer hard drives are infected with a password-stealing virus. If you bought one of Seagate's Maxtor Basics consumer hard drives recently, check it for viruses. Especially if you're a gamer. Seagate is warning that a "small number" of its Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 hard drives recently shipped with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah virus, malicious software that "searches for passwords for online games and sends them to a server located in China," according to a note posted on the Seagate Web site. Only drives purchased since August 2007 are affected, Seagate said....

FOCUSED ATTACK: Large-capacity hard disks often used by government agencies were found to contain Trojan horse viruses, Investigation Bureau officials warned Portable hard discs sold locally and produced by US disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology have been found to carry Trojan horse viruses that automatically upload to Beijing Web sites anything the computer user saves on the hard disc, the Investigation Bureau said. Around 1,800 of the portable Maxtor hard discs, produced in Thailand, carried two Trojan horse viruses: autorun.inf and ghost.pif, the bureau under the Ministry of Justice said. The tainted portable hard disc uploads any information saved on the...

Portable hard discs sold locally and produced by US disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology have been found to carry Trojan horse viruses that automatically upload to Beijing Web sites anything the computer user saves on the hard disc, the Investigation Bureau said. Around 1,800 of the portable Maxtor hard discs, produced in Thailand, carried two Trojan horse viruses: autorun.inf and ghost.pif, the bureau under the Ministry of Justice said. The tainted portable hard disc uploads any information saved on the computer automatically and without the owner's knowledge to www.nice8.org and www.we168.org, the bureau said. The affected hard discs are Maxtor Basics...

Installing a second h/d to a computer. 2nd HD is from pc with dead MB. 2nd HD is formatted with OS (XP) installed. I want to use the #2 HD as a slave and for storage only. HD's are matching ATA/IDE 80GB, 7200 RPM.Question...should I fdisk and reformat before I install as a slave?

State Police searching Virginia Tech duck pond By Dawn Jefferies / 10 On Your Side Jun 25, 2007 It was here, at the Virginia Tech duck pond witnesses reported seeing Seung Hui Cho the morning of April 16th. Today, the duck pond is being drained. Virginia state police say they're leaving no stone unturned. Back in April, 10 on your side was there when teams searched the area, only saying it was a routine part of the investigation. Teams will come out and search this area again but they have to wait until the water drains. Last week, the Washington...

Here's the situation: While attempting to uninstall something, the machine froze, and so I attempted to reboot, and it's never booted since.So, I tried to reinstall Windows XP Pro, and it still hangs on the boot.I've run chkdsk numerous times, tried booting from a different hard drive and accessing the data by making this drive a USB device, and the system won't recognize it.Needless to say I deleted my backups... So, there is some important data on this drive, lots of written work, some r&d, a lot of sentimental stuff, all important email addresses, etc.Can anyone offer any advice besides,...

A portable hard drive that may contain the personal information of up to 48,000 veterans may have been stolen, the Department of Veterans Affairs and a lawmaker said Friday. An employee at the VA medical center in Birmingham, Ala. reported the external hard drive missing on Jan. 22. The drive was used to back up information on the employee's office computer. It may have contained data from research projects, the department said. The employee also said the hard drive may have had personal information on some veterans, although portions of the data were protected. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson...

Soliciting advice and instructions on what is the best way to backup a PC. I have two computers and two hard drives on each.Yes, I have done a Google, but I would like the advice from Freepers who have helped many of us with out computer questions over the years. Is there a way to make an exact copy of my OS, including programs and all data, and "paste" it onto the other hard drive? I read about backing up data; what about backing up everyting? Apologizing in advance for asking a stupid question. But, the weekend is when I...

Erasing data from a computer is not as simple as the manufacturers would have you believe. Just deleting it or reformatting the hard drive does not remove the data, and the secure removal of data about individuals by companies is now a legal requirement. There are a number of methods used to "delete" data from a hard drive. These methods do not remove the data, they simply make space available for the system to use when next required. The data remains on the disk. Readily available software tools can be used to restore the data. Some are even free. When...

A computer taken to Best Buy for repairs prompted the arrest of a veteran attorney on child pornography charges. The attorney told police he was researching a book on child pornography, but authorities are not buying that defense. 69-year-old Dennis Moffat was busted when he brought his computer to a Madison Heights Best Buy. Technicians trying to fix his computer found thousands of pornographic images and called police.

Hey there Tech Freepers. I need your help once again. I seem to have a bad hard drive, and am looking to replace it. I was going to go internal probably with a 120gig EIDE 7200 RPM job. But looking around, I see that externals aren't too much more and are just as fast. This would be the second HD in the system. What are the pros/cons about going external? Mainly this second drive would be used for data files, but maybe some applications. What's the good advice from the Freeper experts on the subject? Thanks...again!

I went through a period where I downloaded some pornography. None of it was illegeal, but I want it gone. I mean GONE. From what I have read, you can think you have deleted something, but the remnants of that file are still there. Advice?

Tax records, resumes, photo albums--the modern hard drive can keep increasingly larger volumes of information at the ready. But that can turn into a problem when it comes to effectively erasing the devices. There are a number of options for cleansing the drives of unwanted computers, from special wiping software to destruction services to manufacturers' recycling programs. But what many PC owners don't realize, experts say, is that these methods are often not enough.

I have had to format C: so many times, I need a new way to get my computer back quickly. I have a dial up connection so updating my Windows packages and Norton virus definitions and other such stuff is a real pain. I have tried several backup meathods and none so far are satifactory. I would love to be back up in a few hours instead of days with all my software installed with the proper serial numbers with all the updates and settings that I like, down to my wallpaper and file locations. I want one of those...

Hi - My PC clone has AMD-K6 & Win 98 SE 1. What changes do I have to make, (and how), to make my computer Boot from CD-ROM? I have a CD that has FreeSBIE / (FreeBSD) on it. When I am able to boot from the CD-ROM, then the FreeBSD is supposed to run the computer from the CD. 2. The ribbon cable that goes to the Hard Drive has that extra plastic connector in the middle of the cable. If I connect a 2nd hard drive to that extra connector, (also with the power connection), what else do...

I just had my hard drive fail. It stopped spinning. Does anyone have experience with a company that recovers the data off a broken hard drive? What price is reasonable? What type of success rate is expected?

In the autumn of 2001 I was one of scores of journalists who ventured into northern Afghanistan to write about the U.S.-assisted war against the Taliban. As I crossed the Hindu Kush to cover the fighting for The Wall Street Journal, my journey took what looked like a fatal turn: the battered black pickup truck I had rented—which in its better years had been a war wagon for Afghan gunmen—lost its brakes as it headed down a steep mountain path, careened along the edge of a gorge, slammed headlong into the back of a Northern Alliance fuel truck that was...

TORONTO - An anti-terrorism probe that led to the arrest of 19 Pakistani men, including one who took commercial flight training over a nuclear power plant, highlights security holes that should have been plugged after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Ontario officials said. The Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Unit, a federal national security task force, quietly arrested the group of mostly young men last week. The men appear to have used fraudulent student visas to enter Canada or to maintain their residency here. Federal authorities documented a pattern of suspicious behaviour that shows an interest in Ontario's nuclear generators...

<p>Michael Norman, who in his "semi-retired" spare time enjoys turning discarded computers into functioning tools, often donating them to poor schoolchildren, has happened across the carcass of one eye-opening machine in a Dumpster next to a Dunkin' Donuts in Schaumburg, Ill.</p>