Pc System Hard Disk Drive Care

Basic drive care for a Pc system includes running a few simple utilities on a regular basis.

Regular Hard Disk Checks

Running regular disk checks helps to ensure that files and folders on our hard drives are in good condition. File system corruption can cause system slow down, data loss, and system crashes; such corruption can even cause the Pc to fail to boot (turn on).

The simplest way to keep the file system healthy on a Pc system is to run Scan Disk on a regular basis. This is one of the most important system tools, and has been included with Windows since the beginning. In fact, previous versions of Scan Disk, under different names, have been included in Pc opertating systems since the DOS erra.

To run a Disk Check, simply follow this click path:

• Double click 'my computer'
• Right click the drive you want to check
• Click 'Properties'
• Then click the 'Tools' tab at the top of the box
• Click 'Check Now'
• Make sure the 'Automatically fix file system errors' box is checked
• Click 'Start'

You may be told that Windows cannot check the disk while it is in use, and be asked if you would like to schedule the Disk Check to run the next time you start your computer. This is perfectly normal, and you should select 'Schedule Disk Check'.

Do this for every drive you want to check; then restart your computer. Please make sure to close and save anything you have open before you restart your computer.

This process may take a while, especially if there are numerous errors in the file system.

Errors in the file system do not necessarily mean that there is a phsyical problem with the disk. Pushing the restart button instead of shutting down and restarting properly, program crashes, and other system errors often cause minor glitches in the file system.

Regular Disk Cean Ups

In general, as your hard drives fill up, they also slow down. More data means longer seek times, longer defragmentation times, and longer disk check times. There is also the risk of data loss in the event something does go wrong.

To help reduce disk clutter, we should perform regular clean ups, and the Disk Clean Up tool that comes with Windows is the first place to start. In general when Windows and other large programs are installed, they can leave an enormous number of temporary files on the hard drive.

To run Disk Clean Up, follow this click path:

• Start (or the Windows logo in the bottom right of your screen)
• Programs ( or All Programs)
• Accessories
• System Tools
• Disk Clean Up

On Windows Vista you may be asked if you want to run Disk Clean Up for your files only or for everyone's files. Since I only use this tool to clear temporary files, I always use the option to run Disk Clean Up for all files.

That's only the automated part of the process. An important part of keeping our drives in good shape is organizing and managing our personal files, and avoiding becoming packrats.

Think of it this way, if your hard drive suddenly told you it had 5 minutes to live, and anything you couldn't get off it was gone forever, would you be in trouble? That is exactly what can and does happen.

Back up your stuff. If you want to keep tons of files kicking around, such as your music collection, fine. But keep that and your other documents seperate. If you can say all of my documents that change are in one place, then you should be able to get those documents off the system very quickly in an emergency situation.

As for the piles of extra files, if you keep those backed up on CD or DVD, then losing those simply means loading them back onto a new hard drive. If you do keep your important documents separate and in one place, you can get those off your system hopefully before the drive is no longer working.

Regular Disk Optimization

Disk defragmentation is probably one of the most important, and most neglected maintenance tasks. A lack of proper defragmentation not only causes of performance loss, but, in extreme cases, can cause the operating system to begin crashing.

Imagine this. You have 10 documents, each of which is 10 pages long. That's 100 pages. Now put them through a card shuffler and then put them into a drawer in a filing cabinet. Then go get a random document. Needless to say, you could end up searching through every single page to find the entire document.

Now think about it this way. Those 10 documents were 10 files. Let's say those 10 pages were 10 file parts. That's 100 file parts.

Ok, so what's the difference? Well, open a few pictures, email messages, a web browser, and an instant messaging program. That's a bucket of files, and 10 buckets of file parts. Play a game, that can really do a number on drive fragmentation, no pun intended.

But there is one thing, and only one thing, we can do about this situation. Run Disk Defragmentor. The more often we use this tool, the faster it works. What this does is it goes through our files and puts all of the parts together in order.

This is still completely true with small computers, with only minimal or no programs installed. It was even true with DOS. Imagine how many files it takes to load Windows. Even Windows XP is how large on the hard drive? At least 1GB? How many tens of thousands of files is that?

Remember, it was still an important issue even in the beginning days of DOS. It's only become a more important and prominent matter since, and this will continue as our operating systems get larger, and the number of files continues to increase.

The best tip I can give you is the following. I can either run my defrag (system wide) for one day a week (yes, it takes that long), or eight  minutes a day, every day. Yeah, that's how many times faster? The more often you run it, the faster it works., and the better your computer runs. It's a win-win situation.

Now it is a slightly different matter when we're talking about Windows XP and Windows Vista as to just how the degragmentor works (in terms of what you have to click).

For both Vista & XP, start here:

• Start
• Programs (or All Programs)
• Accessories
• System Tools
• Disk Defragmentor

Then with XP:

• Click on the drive you wish to defragment
• Then click on 'Defragment'

With Vista:

• Click 'Defragment Now'
• Make sure 'Select All Disks' is checked
• click 'Ok'

Another way to find disk degfragmenter on XP is:

• Right click 'My Computer'
• Click 'Manage'
• Click on 'Disk Defragmenter' on the list on the left
• You'll see the Disk Defragmenter display in the right panel