What is the reasoning behind the names of computer drives?
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Way back in the beginning of PC time, before Microsoft, before  Visicalc, before the IBM PC, there was an operating system for microcomputers called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers). These early PC's only had floppy disk drives (this was before the 'Fisher Price' diskettes we know today, and I know I'm skipping past the tape recorder era), and hard drives for PC's didn't exist. The designers of CP/M wanted an operating system average people could use and needed a way to reference the different floppy drives and chose to use the alphabet as a good way to point to specific drives.  So, the first drive was 'A:', the second was 'B:', and so on (the colon was the separator from the drive designation and filename).  When the first hard drives for PC's became available, it was typical for PC's to come with two floppy drives, therefore the typical and now default reference for the first hard drive became 'C:'.
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The following file names are also reserved under Windows:\n     com1, com2, com3, com4, com5, com6, com7, com8, com9, lpt1, lpt2, lpt3, lpt4, lpt5, lpt6, lpt7, lpt8, lpt9, con, nul, and prn
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The first step toward a better understanding of SATA is to know that SATA is not the brand name, but the name of the organization formed to author the SATA specifications. The group has since changed names, to the Serial ATA International Organization, or SATA-IO.\n  It is a faster type of communcations for computer components, using a revised technology. Please see the link below.
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The data on your hard drive is stored in a quite complicated structure. The largest block of this structure is a partition. It is an area of the physical disk, separated from the remaining disk space. There can be more partitions (separated areas) on one disk. The partitions are independent from each other and they appear as individual disks under Windows. Each partition can be formated to another file system(NTFS,FAT32...) and can be used completely separately (You can have more operating systems on more partitions.).\nMostly the disk is separated into two partitions, one for the OS and one for the data, but you can create as many partitions as you want to use them separately for storing different types of data.\nThe advantage of more partitions is that if you want to format one of them, you still maintain the data on the other one. Or you can put more operating systems on your PC by creating a partition for each OS.\nManaging partitions is quite easy. There are many programs to do this (one of them is even a part of the Windows installation).
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backing up your computer means copying the files and stuff on your hard drive to a removable media (like DVD-RW or CD-RW)\n\nIts a good way to make sure that if something happens to your system (virus, power surge, etc.) you still have the information that was on it and it can be put back (albeit not the newest version necessarily)
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I'm going to assume that your using Windows Explorer...If this is the case then Go to My Computer then Local Drive, By default it is called C:\n\nIf this is the case you will see the all the main folders stored on the C: Drive\n\nOr if you don't like clicking things you may type C: into the address bar in Windows Explorer\n\nP.S Windows explorer is the program that is used when you open my computer and as such, to view your files stored on your computer
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the jumpers "computer guy" is talking about are usualy little rectangular white, or black pieces of plastic coated metal \non the back of the drive. \nnote that the drive is a writing drive therefore, it needs to be master \nIE the drive has three settings identified by markings on the pin diagram such as \nM or MA meaning master\nS or SL meaning Slave\nCable or CS meaning cable select\n\nyou can most likely leave the drive in CS mode if it is already. \n\nthen move the drive to a different location on the IDE cable.\nNote: do not put optical drives on the same IDE cable of a hard drive. It may not damage the computer irrepairably or at all, but it can cause lots of headaches\n\nId say remove one of the writable drives with a standard CD-ROM if you leave the drive in CS mode, \notherwise Master for your DVD+/-RW  and slave for your CD-RW drives\n\nREMEMBER the end of the IDE cable is MASTER, and the Middle is SLAVE.
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to get rid of a virus or if the mft is corrupted .. you can make the drive unusable if ur not careful ... manufacturers websites usually have info about it ... oops thats backwards .. its a lowlevel format ... high level is a regular format to get a disk ready to accept files by the operating system ...it organizes the disk...
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Essentially drive bays come in two sizes for different types of equipment. The other factor to be considered is if the drive bay is accessable from the outside which of course is needed for removable media.
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There is no problem in using two different disks/drives/partitions having different file systems.  The data copied from one type of disk is copied in the other disk in the system in which the disk has been formatted.
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To create an image of a complete hard drive installation, so you can install it onto other pc's hard drives.\n\nUsually used in offices, if you have one standard installtion for users and want to roll it out to every PC in the network.
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It allows you to separate data into different segments for different things...\n\nFor instance, lets say I have a hard disk of 100 Gigabytes. I can partition that drive into three different pieces (assuming I use NTFS)\n\n1) First  partition is 50GB and will be my drive C:\n2) Second partition is 25GB and will be drive G:\n3) Third partition is just under 25GB (because of structure it never is the full 100 GB) and will be my drive H:\n\nThe first partition I can install a windows operating system on. The second partition (Drive G:) I will put on Linux operating system. The last paritition (Drive H) I will use strictly for games and music. So now my system is a dual boot system (I can run windows or Linux) as well as have a drive dedicated to my entertainment.\n\nParitition just allows you to break up the data into logical sections so that they are seen as different hard disks and treated differently. If you are using the FAT32 file system, you will be forced to parition bigger drives because FAT32 doesn't support bigger gigabyte hard disks.\n\nI hope this clarifies it for you. I have included a link below to Wikipedia that talks a bit more in depth about what you can do with partitions. Enjoy!
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You mean SATA II hard drives. Well SATA II hard drives are the most common for home PCs and it is actually very common since it is one of the only types you can get for a home PC. The reason you are having trouble finding your hard drive is due to the size you want it to be. Most PCs carry only a 250 GB or 300 GB hard drive. Rarely could you buy a PC that carries anything larger. Therefore you would rarely find one for sale at that size. What you may want to do is buy two 250GB SATA II drives for a combination of 500GB. This may cost a bit more though unless you pre-order these 500 GB drives, you won't have much selection in normal electronic stores.\n\nEDIT: When you are looking for hard drives, make sure you are looking for internal hard drives, and for desktop PCs.
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Hardware is the physical items. and software is the programs that run on it... So a CD-ROM drive would be hardware, and the program stored on a CD would be software. Things like floppies, CDs, ink cartriges etc. are not usually called hardware, but "media" or "consumables" instead.\n\nOh, and they are usually written as one word, so "hardware" not "hard ware"
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If u have a new computer then it will find it once its hooked up. Nowadays lots of computers come with various drives.
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I prefer to work out with an eliptical machine and weights.\nVirtual drives are used for playing games without the game CD.
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So typically they will have some disk array (essentially a massive array of hard disks), either managed directly or outsourced to some hosting company. Unlike your PC these disks are not inside a PC box, but rather independent devices on a network.\n\nHave a look here to understand better:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_array