![]() Free software can help you do so see the Sept. Take a few minutes to check your drive’s physical health via the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (aka SMART) subsystem built into most current hard drives. But as sure as death and taxes, all drives eventually wear out. It’s a testament to hard-drive technology that they work as well, as long, and as reliably as they do. Their spinning platters can rack up hundreds of millions of rotations per year, and their read/write heads chatter back and forth millions of times, moving chunks of files in astronomical quantities. Traditional hard drives are possibly the hardest-working components in PCs. Check the hard drive’s physical/logical health Microsoft provides a Win8-specific how-to (including a video demonstration) on its “How to use File History” page. Windows 8: Microsoft’s latest OS tries to be all-things-new, so instead of backup, it calls its archiving system File History. Take advantage of whatever backup options your Windows version provides. Windows 7: The “Build a complete Windows 7 safety net” story walks you through the entire process of setting up and using Win7’s built-in backup tools, providing near-total data safety. Many of the techniques cited in the May 12, 2011, Top Story, “Build a complete Windows 7 safety net,” also apply to Vista. Vista: Check out Microsoft’s Vista backup/restore FAQ or the Vista “Back up your files” page. 11, 2010, Top Story, “Windows XP: Looking back, looking forward.” 12, 2010, Top Story, “Preparing Windows XP for the long haul,” and the Nov. XP: For the best information on XP’s serviceable backup tools (plus other essential maintenance tips, techniques, and free utilities), look up the Aug. (An up-to-date backup is good insurance against all manner of ills that might bring down a PC: power spikes, hard-drive crashes, malware infestations, cockpit error, and many other calamities.)Īll current versions of Windows provide the means to make reliable backups, though each new generation of the OS has added enhancements to its archiving capabilities. Preserve and protect system data - Take 1Īs with all significant changes to a PC, start any serious system maintenance with a full system backup - if anything goes awry, you can recover quickly. It’ll help prevent new errors from piling on old ones and keep your system fundamentally sound. To ensure your system runs smoothly for another year, now’s a good time to perform some extra maintenance. In short, just as we’re a year older, our PCs are not the same machines they were a year ago. Heat, dust, and chemical degradation did their inevitable damage, reducing the remaining physical life of your system’s components. And you’ve undoubtedly created and deleted myriad new emails, documents, photos, MP3s, videos, spreadsheets, and such.Īll during that time, your hard drive spun hundreds of millions of revolutions and the system fans rotated for hundreds of hours. Undo a year’s worth of wear and tearĬonsider what your PC has been through in the past 12 months: Windows Update added dozens of patches to your operating system you’ve likely installed some new third-party software, uninstalled other programs, and upgraded or patched apps and utilities and you’ve probably altered, tuned, and tweaked various aspects of your system’s user interface and software settings. Use the following steps to give your PC an annual checkup - and ensure it starts 2013 as healthy as possible. TOP STORY Let your PC start the new year right!Ī little time spent now on preventive maintenance can save hours of PC troubleshooting later - and provide better computing all year long.
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