How to...

Computer help for beginning computer users

Check your hard drive space
Use built-in hard drive utilities

1. Open “my computer” (double click or right click and choose ‘explore’)
2. Choose the drive that you want to check (in this case the ‘c:/’ drive)
3. Right click on the drive, click “properties“ (at the bottom of the list)
4. You are presented with a graphical representation (see graphic 1) of your hard drive. In blue is the USED space and in purple is the FREE space (space that is not used).

Graphic 1

As you can see from graphic 1, this drive has approximately 21 GB used and 29 GB free. There is also some other useful information such as the type of file system used (yours might read FAT32 or FAT. Graphic 1 shows NTFS).

There is an option to “Compress drive to save disk space”. Use this as a last resort option. It will help you “save” space but the act of compressing and decompressing the files as it needs them will slow your computer down.

If you have less than 25% of the total disk space left, then you have effectively run out of disk space. Do not fill your hard drive to its capacity. If you do that, the machine will grind to a snails pace. Your machine needs open space on the hard drive to run in an optimum fashion.

If you are low on hard drive space, there is good news for you, hard drives have gotten very cheap. For about $100 you can find a good external USB Hard Drive with over 100GB of space. Sometimes you can find a good buy at a local computer retailer. Don't spend more than $1/GB if you are upgrading your computer yourself.

Defrag and Checkdisk are two utilities that are included free with your Windows Operating System that you should use often. Read on for detailed instructions about these important utilities.

1. Open “my computer” (double click or right click and choose ‘explore’)
2. Choose the drive that you want to check (in this case the ‘c:/’ drive)
3. Right click on the drive to check “properties“ (at the bottom of the list)
4. There are 5 tabs across the top (see graphic 2 below)
5. Choose the "tools" tab

As you can see from the graphic, you are presented with 3 built-in tools.

Graphic 2

Error-checking:

What it does: (AKA, Scandisk; AKA, Checkdisk) Scans your hard drive for "File Allocation Table” problems and it also scans the physical platters on the hard drive for scratches and dings.

Using Error Checking: Choose the button “check now”. Then check both boxes (automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”). Then click --> ok. At this point the computer complains that it needs total access without you using the computer. Go ahead and choose à “YES”. Now it will run the next time you reboot your computer.

A word of warning: This check can take a number of hours, depending on how big your hard drive is. You will not be able to use your computer while it is running. So it is best to start this before you go to bed. The computer will be ready for you in the morning.

You can run it as often as you like but, it is good to run this utility monthly.

Defragmentation:

This utility is very much under utilized in my opinion. Run this one every week. More or less often as your needs dictate. What this utility does is it re-joins file fragments with the mother files and it reorganizes the hard drive. As you create and alter documents, their size changes.

A file that used to ‘fit’ into a slot on the hard drive will no longer fit if you have increased its size. So after you have worked with a computer for awhile, the files begin to become fragmented. Eventually this will begin to slow your computer because now the computer is “searching” for the remainder of files when it is trying to open them.

Unless you have a corrupt “File Allocation Table” (See Scandisk) the computer will always find the files and the fragments, but it just takes longer. In fact you don't have to do anything to your computer to have it become fragmented; it will do that as a normal course of business. That is why this utility is important. This one does not need to be run overnight, although you can if you want.

You can continue to use your computer while Defrag is running. If you have never run this before, it could take an extended amount of time (a couple of hours). But if you run it on a regular basis, it should only take about 15 - 20 minutes to run. But that depends on how big the hard drive is, how full it is and how often you run Defrag. Every hard drive you have on the computer system should have Defrag run on it from time to time.