Mansfield University Home PageIn our second installment on taking care of your home computer, we’re going to address preventive maintenance. File maintenance and maintenance checks of your hard drive are two aspects of computer ownership most of us avoid as long as possible. Performing virus checks, regularly getting rid of unneeded files and folders, backing up and archiving old information we no longer have immediate need for and running disk maintenance are more than good ideas. These actions can make the difference between a machine that’s reliable and fast, and one that’s problematic.
If you are running an IBM PC with Windows 95, 98 or ME, there is a utility you should run occasionally to insure the fastest, most reliable operation of your machine - DEFRAG. This utility insures that your file system is in good shape. Defrag is typically executed from the RUN command line. In the case of a large hard drive, it may take some time – possibly even overnight - to complete, though Defrag only takes a lot of time if it’s not run regularly. Sometimes Defrag will detect other errors on your drive upon startup and advise that another utility, SCANDISK, must first be run. Scandisk is also executed from the RUN command line, and will fix most problems found in the file structure of your hard drive.
Windows 2000 and XP machines use a slightly different approach to disk maintenance. To check your drives, go to My Computer, right-click on the drive you would like to test, and choose “Properties”. On the Tools tab, under Defragmentation, click Defragment Now. If errors are detected on your drive, you will be advised to run the Disk Repair tool, located on the same page. The HELP files in Windows 2000 and XP contain detailed information on using the Defragmentation and Disk Repair tools.
Scandisk or Disk Repair may also be run separately if you’d like to be certain your disk drives are completely error-free.
If you are running a recent version of an Apple computer, a great deal of system optimization is done during times when the computer is turned on, not asleep, and not otherwise in use. An important aspect of Apple OS X maintenance involves allowing the machine to run unattended for some period of time – don’t force your machine into “sleep” mode immediately after use – give your system time to optimize itself. See your Apple documentation for details. Apple does not recommend any other regular file maintenance, and does not provide tools for doing it, although there are tools available in the event of a serious problem. After OS10.2, you can use Safe Boot to start the machine and automatically run disk repair if your machine hangs up on startup or does not allow a login. Prior to version 10.2 it is necessary to boot from the OS X CD-Rom disk, and choose “disk utility” from the menu. Apple has another version of disk repair for use in dire emergencies – fsck. This is run from the unix command line in the event that the CD is unavailable or the CD drive is not working. Details in the use of the Apple command line repair tool are found in the Emergency Troubleshooting Guide that came with your computer.
And while we’re speaking of file integrity, let’s not forget the necessity of having up-to-date virus detection and repair tools on our home computers. Viruses may find their way into our home machines via the Internet or Email, but they also can be delivered via a diskette or CD from another’s infected computer.
While the most common approaches to virus protection are those from Network Associate’s McAfee, or Symantec’s Norton Antivirus, there are several other competing products that do a good job. Each product uses a slightly different approach to the problems of virus detection and elimination, and also different ways to insure the product is kept up-to-date.
There is one product we’ve found that is actually available as freeware – AVG Antivirus from AVG Technologies. You can check this out at http://www.avg.com/. AVG Antivirus requires the user to go to its web site to download monthly updates, which may require patience on a slow dialup connection. But if you have more time than money, this product is worth a try, particularly if the alternative is having no antivirus protection at all.