| Term | Description |
| Hard Copy | A printout on paper. |
| Hard Drive | A high capacity disk storage device. It is the main secondary storage device in PCs. Information is stored on magnetic platters that spin at high speed inside a sealed case. Read/write heads transfer the data to and from the computer. |
| Hard Drive Controller | A circuit board with components that contain the logic needed to interface with an individual hard drive. These used to be expansion boards that fit into a bus slot on your motherboard but with the introduction of Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) the controller is now integrated right into the hard drive housing. |
| Hardware | The actual physical components and devices that make up a computer system. |
| Head | The top and bottom surface of each platter on a hard drive. Each platter has two heads. |
| Heat Sink | A piece of heat conductive metal with cooling fins that can be attached to the top of an IC, such as a CPU, to draw heat away and allow it to run cooler. |
| High Level Format | The format performed by an Operating System that writes a file system to a logical drive, preparing it work with and understand that particular OS. |
| High Memory Area | See HMA. |
| HIMEM.SYS | A device driver that manages memory above conventional memory (the first 640K). In DOS and Windows 3.x it had to be loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file. Win9x loads it automatically but it has to be present on your hard drive. |
| HMA | High Memory Area. The first 64K of extended memory in DOS. |
| Hotkey | A combination of keystrokes that performs a predetermined action or opens a pop up window or menu in an application. |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language. A language or code used to create pages on the World Wide Web, complete with hyperlinks and the ability to display graphics. |
| HTTP | A set of rules or standards that are used on the World Wide Web that describe how documents are coded, formatted, delivered and received to allow users the exchange of information in Web pages. The beginning of a URL or web address that starts with 'HTTP: ' tells your browser that the web page at that address is compatible with those standards. |
| Hyperlink | An icon, graphic, word or text selection that, when clicked with the mouse, opens another file or web page for viewing. |