Hard Drive Maintenance
The hard disc is where data and information is stored in your computer. Generally, modern operating systems do a pretty good job of looking after filesystem on the hard drive without requiring much user interaction.
However, faults can occur, and some types of systems can build up fragmented files. A PC's performance depends a lot on the hard disc, so it is well worth looking after it.
The utilities explained below can help keep your hard drive in good shape and maintainging good performance.
Scandisk
The hard disc comprises millions of tiny areas of storage called clusters. Any one of these can become faulty, resulting in incorrect programme operation or a system crash. ScanDisk examines the disk for such faults. If a fault is found, it can reorganise disk usage to avoid the problem.
There are a few ways to run ScanDisk:
- from Windows Explorer, right click on the c: drive, select Properties, then Tools, click the ScanDisk button.
- click the Start button, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, ScanDisk
- set up the Maintenance Wizard to run ScanDisk for you. Click the Start button, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Maintenance Wizard. Select the option to programme the wizard. (Remember the wizard can only do its thing if the PC is running when its programmed time comes up.)
There are 2 options with ScanDisk; standard scan and thorough. Use the standard scan for routine scans. Use the thorough scan if you think there might be a problem with the hard disc (this takes much longer).
Run scan disk about every month or so.
Defrag
When a file is stored on the hard disc, it can be in several pieces, depending on what space is available. To start with, files are stored as whole blocks. As files are added and deleted, the space available is the space left by deleted files. To store a file, Windows may now have to spread it over several available plots. This is called fragmentation, and is mainly a problem with older versions of Windows (Windows 95 / 98 / ME).
The defragmentation programme shuffles the files around on the hard disc, so the files are each in one piece. It also sorts some files to the front of the disc, and others to the end, to optimise performance.
There are a few ways to run defrag:
- from Windows Explorer, right click on the c: drive, select Properties, then Tools, click the Defrag button.
- click the Start button, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defrag
- set up the Maintenance Wizard to run Defrag for you. Click the Start button, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Maintenance Wizard. Select the option to programme the wizard. (Remember the wizard can only do its thing if the PC is running when its programmed time comes up.)
Run defrag about every month or so.
Problems
Both ScanDisk and Defrag work on the hard disc. If another programme writes to the hard disc while one of these is working, it has to restart. These utilities take a long time to do their work, so restarting can greatly lengthen this, or even prevent them completing the task.
Before running ScanDisk or Defrag, shut down all programmes you have running, and switch the screen saver to none, or blank screen. You may also have to shut down your virus protection and firewall programmes. A further option is to restart in safe mode.