ASSIGNMENT 1

PARTS OF HARD DISK DRIVE

that needs to be accessed or written; it's also known

as the head arm or actuator arm. There is typically
one read/write head for every platter side, which floats
3 to 20 millionths of an inch above the platter surface.

Actuator
The actuator or head actuator is a small motor that
takes instructions from the drive's circuit board to
control the movement of the read/write arm and
supervise the transfer of data to and from the platters.
It's responsible for ensuring the read/write heads are
in exactly the right place at all times.

Platters
The platters are the circular discs inside the hard
drive where the 1s and 0s that make up your files are
stored. Platters are made out of aluminum, glass or
ceramic and have a magnetic surface in order to
permanently store data. On larger hard drives, several
platters are used to increase the overall capacity of
the drive. Data is stored on the the platters in tracks,
sectors and cylinders to keep it organized and easier
to find.

The Spindle
The spindle keeps the platters in position and rotates
them as required. The revolutions-per-minute rating
determines how fast data can be written to and read
from the hard drive. A typical internal desktop drive
runs at 7,200 RPM, though faster and slower speeds
are available. The spindle keeps the platters at a fixed
distance apart from each other to enable the
read/write arm to gain access. (ref 1+3)

The Read/Write Arm

The read/write arm controls the movement of the
read/write heads, which do the actual reading and
writing on the disk platters by converting the magnetic
surface into an electric current. The arm makes sure
the heads are in the right position based on the data

Other Components
As well as the casing on the outside of the hard disk
that holds all of the components together, the frontend circuit board controls input and output signals in
tandem with the ports at the end of the drive. No
matter what the type of drive, it has one port for a
power supply and one port for transferring data and
instructions to and from the rest of the system.

TYPES OF ETHERNET CABLES

Twisted pair
Twisted pair cabling is a form of wiring in which pairs
of wires (the forward and return conductors of a single
circuit) are twisted together for the purposes of
canceling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from
other wire pairs and from external sources. This type
of cable is used for home and corporate Ethernet
networks.
There are two major types of twisted pair cables:
shielded, unshielded.

Ethernet crossover
An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of twisted pair
Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices
together directly that would normally be connected via

a network switch, hub or router, such as directly

connecting two personal computers via their network
adapters. Most current Ethernet devices support Auto
MDI-X, so it doesn't matter whether you use
crossover or straight cables.

Fiber optic cable

An optical fiber cable consists of a center glass core
surrounded by several layers of protective material.
The outer insulating jacket is made of Teflon or PVC
to prevent interference. Optical fiber deployment is
more expensive than copper but offers higher
bandwidth and can cover longer distances.
There are two major types of optical fiber cables:
short-range multi-mode fiber and long-range singlemode fiber.

be easily distinguishable,[2] and are relatively short,

perhaps no longer than two meters. In contrast to onpremises wiring, patch cables are more flexible but
may also be less durable.

Power lines
Although power wires are not designed for networking
applications, new technologies like Power line
communication allows these wires to also be used to
interconnect home computers, peripherals or other
networked consumer products. On December 2008,
the ITU-T adopted Recommendation G.hn/G.9960 as
the first worldwide standard for high-speed powerline
communications.[3] G.hn also specifies
communications over phonelines and coaxial.

Coaxial cable

TOOLS IN CONNECTING PC CABLES

Coaxial lines confine the electromagnetic wave inside

the cable, between the center conductor and the
shield. The transmission of energy in the line occurs
totally through the dielectric inside the cable between
the conductors. Coaxial lines can therefore be bent
and twisted (subject to limits) without negative effects,
and they can be strapped to conductive supports
without inducing unwanted currents in them.

Cat5e cable

The most common use for coaxial cables is for

television and other signals with a bandwidth of
several hundred megahertz to gigahertz. Although in
most homes coaxial cables have been installed for
transmission of TV signals, new technologies (such
as the ITU-T G.hn standard) open the possibility of
using home coaxial cable for high-speed home
networking applications (Ethernet over coax).
In the 20th century they carried long distance
telephone connections.

Patch cable
A patch cable is an electrical or optical cable used to
connect one electronic or optical device to another for
signal routing. Devices of different types (e.g. a switch
connected to a computer, or a switch connected to a
router) are connected with patch cords. Patch cords
are usually produced in many different colors so as to

RJ45 connectors
Cable stripper
Scissors
Crimping tool
STEPS IN CABLING
1 Strip cable end
2 Untwist wire ends
3 Arrange wires
4 Trim wires to size
5 Attach connector
6 Check
7 Crimp
8 Test

ASSIGNMENT 2
CAUSES OF HDD FAILURES
#1: Heat: The primary cause of hard drive failures
is hardware overheating. Inadequate ventilation
and cooling in and around your computer
hardware can cause severe damage to the
equipment. Overworked hardware with little or no
downtime and smoke or fire damage can wreak
havoc on a system.

#2: Physical damage to your computer: Any type

of physical force, such as bumping, jarring, or
dropping your computer may lead to physical
damage to the hard drive. If your computer is in
use at the time of the impact, the read/write
heads may touch or gouge the disks, causing
damage to the platters magnetic surfaces where
the data is embedded. This is known as a head
crash, and the damage can be significant. Even if
your computer is powered down, the likelihood of
jarring your computers components is still
present.
#3: Power Surges: A power surge can be caused
by lightning strikes, interference with power lines,
or by any event which causes the flow of energy
to be interrupted and then restarted. Power
surges can result in data loss when the read/write
heads fail to function properly, and in the worst
case, a complete computer crash.

#4: Water Damage: Moisture caused by flooding

or even by spilling a liquid onto your computer is
almost assuredly bad news. The casing that
holds the hard disk drive is not designed to be a
barrier against water penetration. Water will have
damaging effects on a computers electronic
parts and disk components, possibly even

causing unwanted electrical currents which can

further damage your computer.

#5: Corrupted files: Improperly closing a program,

turning of your computer before closing files, and
installing new software can cause files to become
corrupted. Power failures and accidental
computer shut downs can contribute to corrupted
files, and causing damage to the hard drive.

#6: Human error: The functions of the hard drive

can be impaired by human tampering with the
system files. Accidental deletion of files
imperative to the disk drive is not uncommon.
Improper installation and removal of files from
your computer can cause the hard disk to
malfunction. Activities conducted during a
forensic investigation of a computer may also
compromise the hard drive.

CATEGORIES OF ETHERNET CABLE

Ethernet cables have been evolving since the
beginning of the Ethernet standard in 1985. Many
different categories of Ethernet cable have been
developed, and each category has different
specifications as far as shielding from
electromagnetic interference, data transmission
speed, and the possible bandwidth frequency
range required to achieve that speed. It is
understandable that some confusion can arise
when looking at all the available options for
Ethernet cabling. Luckily, the category of cable is
usually clearly printed on the cables sheath, so
there can be no doubt as to the type of cable
being used. There are also certain types of
cables recognized as common industry
standards. This guide will describe a few of the

most common categories of Ethernet cable that

are used in modern networks.

Category 3
Category 3 Ethernet cable, also known as Cat 3
or station wire, is one of the oldest forms of
Ethernet cable still in use today. It is an
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable that is
capable of carrying 10 megabits per second
(Mbps) of data or voice transmissions. Its
maximum possible bandwidth is 16 MHz. Cat 3
cable reached the peak of its popularity in the
early 1990s, as it was then the industry standard
for computer networks. With the debut of the
faster Category 5 cable, however, Cat 3 fell out of
favor. It still can be seen in use in two-line
telephone systems and older 10BASE-T Ethernet
installations.

Category 5
Category 5 (Cat 5) Ethernet cable is the
successor to the earlier Category 3. Like Cat 3, it
is a UTP cable, but it is able to carry data at a
higher transfer rate. Cat 5 cables introduced the
10/100Mbps speed to the Ethernet, which means
that the cables can support either 10 Mbps or
100 Mbps speeds. A 100 Mbps speed is also
known as Fast Ethernet, and Cat 5 cables were
the first Fast Ethernet-capable cables to be
introduced. They also can be used for telephone
signals and video, in addition to Ethernet data.
This category has been superseded by the newer
Category 5e cables.

Category 5e
The Category 5e standard is an enhanced
version of Cat 5 cable, which is optimized to
reduce crosstalk, or the unwanted transmission

of signals between data channels. This category

works for 10/100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps (Gigabit)
Ethernet, and it has become the most widely
used category of Ethernet cable available on the
market. While Cat 5 is common in existing
installations, Cat 5e has completely replaced it in
new installations. While both Cat 5 and Cat 5e
cables contain four twisted pairs of wires, Cat 5
only utilizes two of these pairs for Fast Ethernet,
while Cat 5e uses all four, enabling Gigabit
Ethernet speeds. Bandwidth is also increased
with Cat 5e cables, which can support a
maximum bandwidth of 100 MHz. Cat 5e cables
are backward compatible with Cat 5 cables, and
can be used in any modern network installation.

Category 6
One of the major differences between Category
5e and the newer Category 6 is in transmission
performance. While Cat 5e cables can handle
Gigabit Ethernet speeds, Cat 6 cables are
certified to handle Gigabit Ethernet with a
bandwidth of up to 250 MHz. Cat 6 cables have
several improvements, including better insulation
and thinner wires, that provide a higher signal-tonoise ratio, and are better suited for
environments in which there may be higher
electromagnetic interference. Some Cat 6 cables
are available in shielded twisted pair (STP) forms
or UTP forms. However, for most applications,
Cat 5e cable is adequate for gigabit Ethernet,
and it is much less expensive than Cat 6 cable.
Cat 6 cable is also backwards compatible with
Cat 5 and 5e cables.

Category 6a
Category 6 a cable, or augmented Category 6
cable, improves upon the basic Cat 6 cable by
allowing 10,000 Mbps data transmission rates
and effectively doubling the maximum bandwidth

to 500 MHz. Category 6a cables are usually

available in STP form, and, as a result, must
have specialized connectors that ground the
cable.

Category 7
Category 7 cable, also known as Class F, is a
fully shielded cable that supports speeds of up to
10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps) and bandwidths of up to
600 Mhz. Cat 7 cables consist of a screened,
shielded twisted pair (SSTP) of wires, and the

layers of insulation and shielding contained within

them are even more extensive than that of Cat 6
cables. Because of this shielding, they are
thicker, more bulky, and more difficult to bend.
Additionally, each of the shielding layers must be
grounded, or else performance may be reduced
to the point that there will be no improvement
over Cat 6, and performance may be worse than
Cat 5. For this reason, its very important to
understand the type of connectors at the ends of
a Cat 7 cable.