How to Maintain a Healthy Hard Disk?

A computer is a complicated, irregular piece of equipment, and every now and then things can, and do, go wrong. It can get accidentally knocked, for example, just like other electrical equipment in your home. When a PC is switched on, even what might seem like a small knock could affect the computer's hard disk, where all your programs and documents are stored. Such knocks can interfere with the data that is stored on the disk and this could make a single file or even whole areas of the hard disk impossible to use. As a result, any data stored there could be lost.

Don't just switch off. Similar problems often arise when the PC is switched off before open documents are closed. Make sure that everyone using your computer, especially any children who share it, knows that the only safe way to switch a computer off is to select the Turn off Computer option from the Start menu. If you do this, Windows will check to ensure that any open documents have been properly saved before shutting down.

Less frequently, hard disk problems can also occur as a result of faulty software, quite outside your control.

Even when it is working properly, your computer's hard disk can become clogged up. As a result of this, you might find that it seems to slow down, and operating open and save commands takes longer than it did when the PC was new.

All these problems are easily cured with Windows' suite of programs called System Tools. There's a tool to deal with each problem.

When a document file stored on disk has been damaged, it is said to be corrupted. Sometimes the file won't be accessible at all; you might try to open a corrupted letter in Word. Even if the document isn't that important, you should always repair the damage to the disk so that it cannot affect other documents in the future. The error-checking tool can check your hard disk for errors and will automatically repair any damaged areas it finds.

If your computer seems to be running slower than it used to, you can tune it up and get it back up to speed by using the Disk Defragmenter. This re-organizes the data on your hard disk so that programs can start, and your documents can be opened or saved, as quickly as possible. It doesn't change the way you have arranged the documents and folders on your disk, so you'll still find everything where you left it.

Disk Cleanup, another of Windows' System Tools, can automatically delete unused and unwanted files that are taking up disk space.