Your photos, music and data are just a virus or hard disk failure away from oblivion. Build a triple-layer defence using PC Authority's practical guide.

PC Authority takes a trip down computer memory lane and discovers just how PC technology has evolved... and how Microsoft and IBM nearly destroyed each other.

Does dropping a hard disk from a third floor window or dunking it in a cup of tea mean curtains for your data? We visit Ontrack's data recovery labs to find out.

With the increasing size of operating systems, games and the broadband smorgasbord of music and movies, it's just a matter of time before that dreaded message box pops up to tell you just how little space you have left.

Many people upgrade their PCs by adding the latest CPU or more memory, but leave their old hard disk in place. The humble hard disk is one of the slowest components inside a PC (in fact, only optical

Solid state 1GB and 2GB drives target low cost computers.

Ever wondered what a particular acronym stands for? Find the answer in our comprehensive reference guide to computer industry acronyms. RTFM!

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Hard drives used to be the coolest thing - in the olden days, when all home PCs were slow, a hard drive was often a measure of how 'good' your computer was. For quite sometime, however, processor and graphics technology stole the limelight. Hard drives have been taken for granted - an ambient component that accompanies your sparkling graphics card and gi-normous heat sink.

It doesn't happen often, but in case it does, we'll step you through Linux disaster recovery.

Just over four months on from our massive hard drive roundup (October 2002, page 74), and Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks have finally arrived. Phew.

Once you’ve read this article, your hard drive could be melted in 30 seconds. “Digital Shredding” technology is now available.

Every expert has a toolkit. Tim Dean takes you through the 10 tools any Windows expert cannot live without. So, to give you a head start, here are PC Authority's top 10 tools for the ultimate Windows user.

Sandisk has announced its new Vaulter Disk system accelerator, which provides a special system cache in the form of Flash memory.

Unless you keep your computer disconnected from a network and under secure lock and key there will always be the potential for prying eyes to access the data on your hard disk.

What can a vendor-controlled comparison of notebook technology teach us? Plenty – but not in the way it was intended. Read on as we expose HP’s notebook ‘Reliability Challenge’.

We’ve examined the data from more than 8000 readers to reveal exactly what sort of reliability, customer service and satisfaction you can expect in 2007.

Stuck for storage space? Upgrade to one of the latest disks and you’ll benefit from better performance too

New wizards make it easier to use, and the range of operations is impressive for such a reasonable price