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Answers to last week's quiz:

1. If a file is badly fragmented, Windows has to search all over the hard drive to find it.

False. 25% got this wrong. Windows knows where it is - every file system has a list of disk file locations. There may be confusion between 'search' and 'seek'. Seek is the read/write head moving to the specified cylinder and sector. If a file is fragmented more seeks are needed than if a straight linear read can be done. Search would be if the location on the disk is unknown, which is never the case.

2. S.M.A.R.T. detects malware on your hard drive.

All of you recognized that S.M.A.R.T. is Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. This is built in to the hard disk. Unfortunately, at least a third of all hard disk failures occur without any warning from S.M.A.R.T. However the data is still interesting. A very nice free utility for observing the readings is Active Hard Disk Monitor http://www.disk-moni...m/download.html Wikipedia has a good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

3. Most defragmenters use the same defragmenting engine.

True. 37% got this wrong. They almost all use the Windows API. Microsoft developed this in conjunction with Executive Software (now Diskeeper Corporation). http://msdn.microsof...911(VS.85).aspx
Defragmenters differ in their user interface and in how they arrange the files.

4. If a defragmenter has a visual presentation, defragmenting should result in just two solid bars, one of used space and one of free space.

False. 25% got this wrong. http://technet.micro...sktopfiles.aspx
But actually that is the last thing that you want. Some products try to make their disks appear as two blocks—one colored (file data) and one generally white (free space). Unfortunately, this is one of the worst things you can do to a disk if your intention is to minimize the frequency and cost of defragmentation. If you've aggressively compressed all file data to the front of the disk and removed much of the free space when you make additional edits to a file, all those edits will have to be written to the end of the file data, so by defragmenting in that way, you've actually caused fragmentation, beginning with the next file edit.

5. Most hard drives can operate properly on mountaintops as high as 15,000 feet.

False. 25% got this wrong. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia....ard_disk_drive: The HDD's spindle system relies on air pressure inside the enclosure to support the heads at their proper flying height while the disk rotates. Hard disk drives require a certain range of air pressures in order to operate properly. The connection to the external environment and pressure occurs through a small hole in the enclosure (about 0.5 mm in diameter), usually with a filter on the inside (the breather filter)....If the air pressure is too low, then there is not enough lift for the flying head, so the head gets too close to the disk, and there is a risk of head crashes and data loss. Specially manufactured sealed and pressurized disks are needed for reliable high-altitude operation, above about 3,000 m (10,000 feet)...Breather holes can be seen on all disk drives — they usually have a sticker next to them, warning the user not to cover the holes.