# Parking the hard drive when moving a computer **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 29, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130 "2004-08-29T21:12:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ultraviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c77e96/32.png) [@Ultraviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ultraviolet)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/1 "2004-08-29T21:12:33Z")
I seem to remember years ago when doing Computer Science in high school, we were told that it was necessary to “park the hard drive” before physically moving the CPU. Is this still necessary with today’s computers? I’m moving soon and want to know if I must do this. ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/2 "2004-08-29T21:16:03Z")
Modern drives park themselves when powered down. Don’t worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/3 "2004-08-29T22:18:28Z")
> [@Berkut](#): > > Modern drives park themselves when powered down. Don’t worry about it. Yep. I dropped one _down the stairs_ (highly not recommended), and it actually survived and passed a surface scan with flying colors. ---
**Author:** ![Torpor\_Beast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@Torpor\_Beast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torpor_Beast)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/4 "2004-08-29T22:44:32Z")
It’s funny how [park.com](http://park.com) and park.exe seem to spread among CS teachers. Kind of like a virus. 😃 I remember having to park the MFM disks in our CS classroom in the late eighties/early nineties, but even then I had a Quantum SCSI disk with auto parking heads sitting at home. AFAIK manual parking of HD heads died when the IDE standard appeared. ---
**Author:** ![Ultraviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c77e96/32.png) [@Ultraviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ultraviolet)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/5 "2004-08-29T23:21:17Z")
Thanks, guys! I thought it wasn’t necessary, but better safe than sorry. ---
**Author:** ![beltbuckle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@beltbuckle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beltbuckle)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/6 "2004-08-29T23:38:48Z")
haha. same experience here. My junior high technology teacher made sure we parked the heads before each shutdown, even. These were 286’s, and the drives already were parking themselves at this time. You can hear the heads park if you listen closely, when you shut your computer down your drive makes one last clicky sound. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/7 "2004-08-30T14:05:27Z")
There are _two_ kinds of parking. The old-fashioned kind used for safely shutting down the drive and a “harder” park for when you want to ship the drive. The former has been done automatically for years. (Note that the earliest IDE drives were _not_ self-parking.) As to the former, most of what I know about it comes from the “extra utilities” menu on drive makers’ set-up disks. I don’t know if current IDE drives still need them, but it was still a useful option in the quite recent past. So, _Ultraviolet_, get the set-up disk for your particular drive. (You can get the latest version from the maker’s web site.) See if it has a park option for your drive. It it does, use it. Can’t hurt, might help. ---
**Author:** ![Torpor\_Beast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@Torpor\_Beast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torpor_Beast)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parking-the-hard-drive-when-moving-a-computer/262130/8 "2004-08-30T15:30:32Z")
Seriously, there’s no reason to use parking utilities if your drive is less than 10 years old. All modern harddisks pull their heads mechanically to the landing zone used for parking. Even if you pull the power plug in the middle of a read. This site has some more info: [http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/actParking.html](http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/actParking.html)