Truth : |
Scanning for viruses is no different from any other operations that requires reading data from the hard disk drive. Therefore, the act of scanning viruses is no less likely to kill your hard disk drive than it is to prevent YOU from catching a cold. 
With that said, unnecessarily scanning the hard disk drive continuously will increase the operating temperature of the hard disk drive. Over a long time, the sustained high temperature can reduce the lifespan of your hard disk drive. |
Truth : |
The funny thing about this myth is that head movements have little to do with the spindle speed, which is the speed at which the hard disk drive platters rotate. How often the read/write heads move depends on the number of random access operations, not the spindle speed.
As the heads in all modern hard disk drives move by electromagnetic force and are suspended over the spinning platters by a cushion of air, there's no reason why head movements in a higher-speed hard disk drive should be any more dangerous than they are in slower-spinning hard disk drives. |
Truth : |
The small holes are called "breather holes" and they are necessary for the proper operation of the hard disk drive. While it is true that any dust entering the hard disk drive can damage it by causing head crashes, it is impossible for dust to slip in through the breather holes because they are protected by an air filter.
The read/write heads float on a cushion of air (an air bearing) which rely on a certain amount of air pressure to work properly. The breather holes allow the hard disk drive to maintain the pressure of air within the drive. As such, they should NEVER be covered.
Again, covering the breather holes will NOT prevent dust from entering the drive because they already have filters doing the job. |
Truth : |
Yeah, right... You just drop your friend's hard disk drive, didn't you? It's an outright lie and you know it. 
Although hard disk drives are a LOT more robust when they are not running, they are still mechanical devices that can only take so much shock.
Even when they are not running, most 3.5" hard disk drives can only withstand shocks of 250 G to 350 G. That may sound like a lot, but acording to Mike from Western Digital, 300 G is only about a 3" drop to a hard surface, so it doesn't take much to damage a desktop hard disk drive.
The smaller 2.5" hard disk drives used in laptops are more robust and can take up to 900 G. Even so, you do not need me to tell you that it is not a good idea to drop them, even from a height of "just a few inches". |
Truth : |
This is partially true. Back in the days when people were still playing RPGs with paper and dice, hard disk drive manufacturers calculated storage space the same way software companies did - 1 MB was equivalent to 1,048,576 bytes. Back then, a 40 MB hard disk drive would actually have 41,943,040 or so bytes of storage space.
Then the hard disk drive manufacturers wised up. They figured out that they could make more money if they calculated things a little differently. Why should they give us 41,943,040 or so bytes of storage space when they can calculate that as 42 MB and charge you for the extra 2 MB?
So they decided that as far as the hard disk drive industry was concerned, 1 MB was equivalent to 1,000,000 bytes. The software industry, of course, had no reason to adopt the new system. This is why your operating system will report that a 750 GB hard disk drive only has a capacity of about 698 GB. No, your mouse did not bite a chunk from your hard disk drive while you were asleep.
Now, you must be wondering why we think this is a myth. Well, it is technically not true that hard disk drive companies cheat in the way they calculate storage space. Think of it as "creative manipulation of reality". Oddly enough, many accountants and stock traders who tried similar things have been thrown into jail.  |
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