querry about hard drive storage

[delco007]

Hi there ,
i have been trying to find a reliable hard drive and so far i have been unsuccessful . i am currently using western digitals ws800js and 1600js and both of them are not performing up to the level i expect .
i download a lot of stuff and may be thats what the damage is caused by , now coming to my questions :

Some of my friends say that if you keep data stored on a hard drive for a looooong time and dont use it at all then the data kept on the drive will get corrupted even though the hard drive is stored in normal conditions .
is it really true ? i mean how can data go stale when the hard drive is not being used .?i am seeking an answer for this problem becoz i was thinking about storing some important data on a separate hard drive and keep it out of my system . I have also heard about a software called spinrite , is that a really good software to repair hard drives ?

Also recommend me a good hard drive with atleast 16 mb buffer , 7200 rpm and capacity around200-300 gb that can take a good amount of wear and tear .
and finally , is there some kind of forum or website which i can check out to know more about file system architecture and hard drives .

thats all for now

Guru
(sorry to bombard you guys with lots of questions at one go)

 

[Blain]

You go from your HDs "not performing up to the level i expect" to "may be thats what the damage is caused by"
Did you leave out some critical information? :roll:
Sub-par performance doesn't = corruption

 

[delco007]

Well , i have noticed slow back of movies , sudden vanishing of volumes on a hard drive( i have 80 gb hdd as master and 160 gb as slave ) and suffered to play games in "slow motion" and these are some of the things that have got me worried . Ohh yes i forgot to say that my pc takes around 4-5 minutes to start whereas earlier it used to be just a minute or 2 .

Guru

 

[Zepper]

The P2P networks are known for being a major delivery system for malware. Have you done all the scans to check for malware. Are all your security programs (AV, anti spyware, firewall, etc.) up to date and with the latest signature files? I also replace cables when I have HDD-related problems - those are made so cheaply these days it's a wonder they work at all. Try Granite for some better quality cables.

.bh.