Posts Tagged ‘Hard Drive’
File Loss in Windows Due To Lack of Shutdown Notification
February 5th, 2010 | 
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n Microsoft Windows operating system, a hard drive volume that has basic disk signature, a shutdown event is send to SCSI miniport. It allows the SCSI miniport to initialize the shutdown process. But in case of a volume with dynamic signature, the shutdown event can not take place. This behavior of Microsoft Windows causes the possibility of file loss. Such situation requires windows data recovery solutions to be resolved.
In general scenario, for a volume with the basic disk signature, Scsiport.sys sends an hwStartIo SRB_FUNCTION_SHUTDOWN event to SCSI miniport (for every volume). It allows miniport to initialize the shutdown processing. But for a disk volume with dynamic disk signature, expected hwStartIo SRB_FUNCTION_SHUTDOWN event doesn’t take place for any of the dynamic volume if the PORT_CONFIGURATION_INFORMATION CachesData=TRUE is specified.
This behavior of Microsoft Windows cause potential file loss. When you build caching controller that is based upon Microsoft specification, which says that the disk controller would be notified before the shutdown event. You can probably build a reliance on that command for appropriate operation of cache or other internal operations.
Root of the issue
There are following three major issues that might cause this problem:
The disk controller bank on shutdown IRP for clearing write-back cache, which is enabled on disk. When cache flush command is applied on the volume, it just flushes controller cache.
The shutdown is not a the last command issued by operating system.
The final volume cleanup and shutdown doesn’t take place. In case of RAID array, the parity coherency issues main occur in such cases. It might require volume re-initialization.
The re-initialization of RAID volume might take several hours, affective the performance and possibly causing serious file loss situations. In such situations, carrying out windows data recovery software becomes essential to retrieve lost, missing and inaccessible files.
This is best possible through the help of powerful and advanced third party File Recovery Software. These tools are powerful enough to methodically scan entire hard drive using effective scanning mechanisms and retrieve all of the files from it. You can use these software without having sound and prior technical skills as they come equipped with interactive and self-descriptive graphical user interface. With read only and non destructive design, these software are totally safe to use on any of the storage media.
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most advanced and effective tool to retrieve all sorts of lost files. It recovers files from FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system partitions. This File Recovery Software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 RC1, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000.
In general scenario, for a volume with the basic disk signature, Scsiport.sys sends an hwStartIo SRB_FUNCTION_SHUTDOWN event to SCSI miniport (for every volume). It allows miniport to initialize the shutdown processing. But for a disk volume with dynamic disk signature, expected hwStartIo SRB_FUNCTION_SHUTDOWN event doesn’t take place for any of the dynamic volume if the PORT_CONFIGURATION_INFORMATION CachesData=TRUE is specified.
This behavior of Microsoft Windows cause potential file loss. When you build caching controller that is based upon Microsoft specification, which says that the disk controller would be notified before the shutdown event. You can probably build a reliance on that command for appropriate operation of cache or other internal operations.
Root of the issue
There are following three major issues that might cause this problem:
The disk controller bank on shutdown IRP for clearing write-back cache, which is enabled on disk. When cache flush command is applied on the volume, it just flushes controller cache.
The shutdown is not a the last command issued by operating system.
The final volume cleanup and shutdown doesn’t take place. In case of RAID array, the parity coherency issues main occur in such cases. It might require volume re-initialization.
The re-initialization of RAID volume might take several hours, affective the performance and possibly causing serious file loss situations. In such situations, carrying out windows data recovery software becomes essential to retrieve lost, missing and inaccessible files.
This is best possible through the help of powerful and advanced third party File Recovery Software. These tools are powerful enough to methodically scan entire hard drive using effective scanning mechanisms and retrieve all of the files from it. You can use these software without having sound and prior technical skills as they come equipped with interactive and self-descriptive graphical user interface. With read only and non destructive design, these software are totally safe to use on any of the storage media.
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most advanced and effective tool to retrieve all sorts of lost files. It recovers files from FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system partitions. This File Recovery Software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 RC1, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000.
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Choosing The Right Notebook – A Buyers Guide
Notebooks – Finding the Right System to Meet Your Needs
A computer is a major purchase and should not be taken lightly, especially if you are purchasing a notebook computer. There are a number of factors that need to be considered before you even get to the store to take a look at what is available.
The most important thing is to decide what are the tasks you would like to be able to do with your notebook, is it going to be just for work, or home use. Are you going to need it to be able to play memory intensive games? Once you have decided all these things and you have internet access take a look at some of the various types of notebooks available. Review sites are some of the best places to check out what notebooks are good for what. Some of the things you do need to consider are the monitor size, memory, processor, graphics, drives, hard drive, and software.
Larger monitor size are excellent for people who need to have a lot of different windows open at the same time or who like to have their fonts and icons on the larger size. Memory, this refers to computers Ram. Depending on the types of programs you are planning on running this will be an important consideration. More Ram means the more programs can be open at the same time. If you are just going to search the web, you will not need as much Ram as someone who is planning on doing graphic design with their notebook. The processor is another consideration. Just like with Ram, the more you plan to do, the larger this needs to be.
If you are plan on gaming with your Notebook, you will definitely want to pay attention to the graphics card. This determines just how well things are rendered on your monitor. The better the graphics card, the better the rendering. There are many games that will tell you the type and size of card necessary for play check out the requirements before purchasing your notebook. Notebooks come with a wide variety of drive options if you just want to do things like watch movies or run CD’s than a CD/DVD rom is probably enough. If you would like to burn data then a CDRW might be what your looking for and if you need to burn a lot of data or would like to burn movies, then a DVD burner is something you should look into adding to your Notebook. Hard drives are based also on need. If you are planning on handing a lot of data, get a larger capacity hard drive on the other hand if you are only planning on saving things like word files, a higher capacity hard drive may not be necessary. When it comes to software, there are a wide variety of different packages available. Consider your needs and look at getting the notebook that has the majority if not all of the software you will need.
Now that you have the basics on choosing your next or first notebook, you might want to check out some of these top manufacturers MSI, ACER, IBM, HP, or FUJITSU.
A computer is a major purchase and should not be taken lightly, especially if you are purchasing a notebook computer. There are a number of factors that need to be considered before you even get to the store to take a look at what is available.
The most important thing is to decide what are the tasks you would like to be able to do with your notebook, is it going to be just for work, or home use. Are you going to need it to be able to play memory intensive games? Once you have decided all these things and you have internet access take a look at some of the various types of notebooks available. Review sites are some of the best places to check out what notebooks are good for what. Some of the things you do need to consider are the monitor size, memory, processor, graphics, drives, hard drive, and software.
Larger monitor size are excellent for people who need to have a lot of different windows open at the same time or who like to have their fonts and icons on the larger size. Memory, this refers to computers Ram. Depending on the types of programs you are planning on running this will be an important consideration. More Ram means the more programs can be open at the same time. If you are just going to search the web, you will not need as much Ram as someone who is planning on doing graphic design with their notebook. The processor is another consideration. Just like with Ram, the more you plan to do, the larger this needs to be.
If you are plan on gaming with your Notebook, you will definitely want to pay attention to the graphics card. This determines just how well things are rendered on your monitor. The better the graphics card, the better the rendering. There are many games that will tell you the type and size of card necessary for play check out the requirements before purchasing your notebook. Notebooks come with a wide variety of drive options if you just want to do things like watch movies or run CD’s than a CD/DVD rom is probably enough. If you would like to burn data then a CDRW might be what your looking for and if you need to burn a lot of data or would like to burn movies, then a DVD burner is something you should look into adding to your Notebook. Hard drives are based also on need. If you are planning on handing a lot of data, get a larger capacity hard drive on the other hand if you are only planning on saving things like word files, a higher capacity hard drive may not be necessary. When it comes to software, there are a wide variety of different packages available. Consider your needs and look at getting the notebook that has the majority if not all of the software you will need.
Now that you have the basics on choosing your next or first notebook, you might want to check out some of these top manufacturers MSI, ACER, IBM, HP, or FUJITSU.
