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Proper maintenance and care will ensure your computer provides you with the best performance, and less troubles in the long run. The following optimising suggestions will ensure your computer is always in top shape.
| SCAN YOUR COMPUTER FOR ERRORS |
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Even through normal use of your computer, there can be times where folders and files can become damaged or incorrectly labeled. Such errors can occur by not correctly shutting down your computer, bugs in the operating system’s code or from viruses or malicious software running on your computer (read more information on the tutorial for keeping safe from viruses).
Running the scan-disk program built in with Windows periodically, allows your computer to ensure these errors are fixed immediately. Scan-disk also has the ability to run a more thorough test on your hard-drive, to ensure the integrity of data being stored.
To start scan-disk, just double click on My Computer (located on your desktop), right click on your Hard-drive (C: Drive), then left click on Properties.
Click on the Tools tab along the top, and then click on the Check now button.
Select the Standard test to check the files and folders on your computer, or select the Thorough test to include a physical scan of your hard-drive. Make sure you have a tick in the box Automatically fix errors, before clicking on Start.
Note: if your computer detects and fixes any errors, it is usually a good idea to restart your computer when the scan-disk has completed.
If you are running Windows XP, you will have a different looking window. The first box allows you to scan files and folders for damage or errors. This is equivalent to the Standard test in Windows 95/98/ME. The second box is similar to a thorough test, and will perform a physical scan of your hard-drive.
After you click on the Start button, you will be prompted to restart your computer for the scan-disk to take place.
| DEFRAGMENT YOUR HARD-DRIVE |
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When your computer starts to become sluggish, and programs are taking almost forever to open, then your computer is long due for a defragmentation. During the continual process of installing new programs, and removing others, moving and deleting files, fragmentation of data can occur on your hard-drive (storage device). This means several parts of any program or file are located in different areas of the hard-drive. Defragmentation is the process of rearranging those fragments so data for each file and program on your hard-drive are stored together. This allows both your computer to start-up faster, and programs to load quicker, as the head in your hard-drive does not need to move far to find all the required data.
Windows users running either Windows 95, 98, ME (Millennium Edition), 2000 or XP will already have a built in program, which allows you to defragment your hard-drive.
Note: before you proceed, it is important to make sure you do not have any other program running on your computer, and remember to disable any anti-virus software you may be running.
To start Windows defragmenter, just double click on My Computer (located on your desktop), right click on your Hard-drive (C: Drive), then left click on Properties.
Click on the Tools tab along the top, and then click on the Defragment button.
If you are running Windows 95/98/ME, you will see a small status window, similar to the one showing below. If you are running Windows XP, just click on the Analyze button, before clicking on Defragment.
| RELATED LINKS |
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- Optimizing.net
- PC Mechanic
- Windows 98: Maintaining your computer
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