The "data centre" of the computer is your hard drive. It is on the hard drive that all the programs and data are stored between the periods of time that you use your computer. The hard drive disks are an essential part of permanent storage used in computers. The technology that a hard drive disk uses is amazing and its technology just keeps getting better. Progress has been made in the hard drives capacity, speed, and price over the last 20 years.

The very first computer hard disks had a maximum capacity of 10 megabytes and were priced over $100 per MB. Today hard drives have capacities almost nearing 100 gigabytes and are priced at lower than 1 cent per MB. This comparison demonstrates just how far technology has moved since the first computers were introduced. The speed of the hard disk and interfaces have also vastly improved.It is essential that the hard drive of the computer works effectively otherwise it will lower the overall performance of your computer system.

When the hard drive is not performing well it usually indicates a problem with the driver or the controller. Occasionally problems might occur with the hard drive if the CD ROM drivers are not configured properly. The hard drive is in control of the speed at which the computer boots up and determining the speed at which programs load. The hard disk is also essential for the performance of multitasking. It is also in control of processing large amounts of data like graphics, editing sound and video and working with databases.

A larger hard drive disk allows you to store more programs and data. The hard disk is the most important component of the computer since without it the computer would not work. It is therefore fair to say that the hard drive is the heart of the computer and without it the computer would not survive. Hardware can be replaced, but there is no way of replacing data. It is essential for the performance of a computer to carry out frequent maintenance and backup. Therefore if anything does go wrong with the computer, data loss doesn"t cause a nightmare to your life.

The hard disk and partition imagining software is like taking a photograph of the way your computer is set up so that you can return it to the same way as it was if anything goes wrong with the hard disk. This function allows you to restore the computer to a later time to the same way the system was when you imaged the disk or partitioned it.

This is am extremely helpful function for system recovery in situations where your hard disk malfunctions.The image utilities commonly allow fine control of what you have back-upped on your system. Although you are able to specify the partitions or hard disks to back up, you would not have the ability to specify which folders to exclude or include. Hard disk imaging software also has the ability to clone a hard disk onto another.

Hard drive tools can be used for restoring the hard drive to its original condition. There are certain tools that make it possible for you to restore the system without actually reformatting the hard drive. There is a “data recovery tool” that finds files on the problem hard drive and allows you to save files to another drive. Hard drive tools are extremely useful when there is any type of problem with the hard drive and as explained earlier this is extremely important for the proper functioning of your computer. There are certain factors that can make your computer run slowly and hard drive tools help to diagnose problems with the hard drive so the computer can run more efficiently.

Some of the reasons for the computer running slowly include; Unnecessary Start-up programs running in the background. Hard Disk fragmented & in need of being De fragmented, Hard Disk errors might be corrected with "Check Disk", Hard Disk needing "Clean Up", Ad ware & Spyware, Windows Registry issues, Viruses, Anti-Virus Security Programs and finally your PC might need more RAM.Hard drive tools differ from ordinary computer tools since they are specifically designed to repair the hard drive and make its performance more efficient.