Drive doesn't have to crash for files to be damaged

Q: My external drive crashed, I believe, and I had to reinstall my Microsoft Vista Ultimate.

I have two questions. First, is there any way to test to see if the external drive actually crashed? And second, I have heard that if you disconnect an external drive that it changes its designation — for example, from "F" to another letter — and you cannot use the external drive again because the designation has been changed. Any truth to this?

Denny Dalton

A: Generally, if a hard drive has "crashed" it won't work anymore. That means damage has happened to areas of the disk drive that are critical to its functioning.

Of course, it's possible to have damage to your hard drive in noncritical areas. While that might not be termed a "crash," it can lead to programs malfunctioning or damage to data. You can check on this kind of damage by scanning your hard drive.

In Vista, you'd do this by opening Windows Explorer and then right-clicking on the drive and selecting Properties. Next, click on the Tools tab in the dialog box that pops up and then click on the Error-checking button.

As for disconnecting your external drive, when you reconnect it the drive may receive a different letter designation depending upon whether other drives have been added. But that won't mean you can't access the drive. The only snag might be that if you have mapped directories, you may have to remap them.

Q: Is there a difference between the Microsoft Office 2003 version of speech recognition and the version used in Vista? If there is a difference please give me some idea of these differences. Is the Office 2003 version comparable with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 you tested?

Kevin Ferguson

A: There are quite a few differences between the speech recognition in Office 2003 and that delivered with Vista. First, I've found the Vista version to be significantly more accurate. In addition, the Vista tool has a broader command set, offers a correction box, is not limited to working with Office applications, and offers full mouse and keyboard emulation. (You can find a more complete list of differences specified at www.tau.ac.il/~itamarez/sr/Vista-vs-Xp.htm)

As for your last question, as I noted in the article you're referring to (Personal Technology, Sept. 15), the Vista tool isn't quite a robust as DNS 9.0 and the Office 2003 tool isn't as robust as the Vista tool.

Q: Can you recommend an external hard drive that includes automated backup software? I work at a dental clinic with digital X-rays and we have approximately 20 gigabytes of files that I do not want to lose. I would prefer software to accompany the hard drive such that we can program the update for 2 a.m. when we are not in the office using the system.

Ken Hansen

A: Most recent versions of Windows include a backup utility that allow you to schedule backups to external drives.

Both Windows Vista and Windows XP have utilities that support this capability.

As for external drives that include backup software, many of them do. I happen to use a Seagate 3.5-inch Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive. It includes its own backup software, which supports commanding a backup by simply pushing a button the device, as well as by custom scheduling. However, I just use the utility in Vista to schedule automatic backups.

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by e-mail to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail at Q&A/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.