Hard disks crash due to several reasons. Voltage fluctuations, physical impact, wrong alignment and obviously mechanical failure due to wear of interior components. Let us start one at a time and get the solutions to the above issues.

1. Voltage fluctuations or spikes as they're called can be forestalled by employing voltage stabilizers or spike guards. This may limit the damages caused to the hard disk to a significant extent.

2. Physical impact can be stopped by handling the hard disk fastidiously when installing / re-installing. When installing the hard disk care must be taken to see that it sits completely horizontal and that it doesn't vibrate or shake once the computer is started.

3. The natural damage of parts can be restrained by defragmenting your hard disk every now and then.

But what's defragmentation?

All newly made files are placed in varied places on the hard disk in a single cluster (contiguous file). As the amount of files and programs increase, these files aren't stored as one contiguous file but broken down and scattered in diverse places on the hard disk. In short files get fragmented. When these files are accessed by the user, the head on the hard disk moves to and fro to find these bits. These fragmented files puts lot of mechanical force on the internal components of the hard disk. This leads on to crashes.

To start disk defragmenter from start menu, click the start button and follow this trail (All Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Defragmenter). At least fifteen pc free space on your disk is required for disk defragmenter to run. The disk may also be defragmented immediately by utilizing schedule task. This program can be accessed thru system tools.

4. Power managing tool may also be used to improve the life of hard disk. To access this programs go to start / control panel / power options and set the parameters for diverse hardware devices.

5. Disk cleanup increases the potency of the hard disk. So remove unwelcome files and programs constantly.