Wouldn't it be nice if your Computer still ran like it did
back when you first got it? Before you go and buy a new
computer try this key maintenance step you can use to put
life back into the computer you've already got.

Imagine that you start up your pc just to find yourself
staring at a blue screen with white writing, termed "the
blue screen of death" by those at Microsoft.

So you push the power button to shut it down, and when you
bring
it back up it just crawls. Within a few minutes it goes
back to the
blue screen of death.

This happened to a friend of mine. When she asked me what
she could do, I asked her if she had ever defragmented her
pc.

She got that "deer in the headlight" look, so I knew she
hadn't. Defragmenting her pc, after 3 years of never doing
so, took about 14 hours to complete.

One of the main reasons that computers slow down is poor
maintenance practices.

Unfortunately, when you buy a new computer you don't usually
get much instruction on how to maintain it. Poor or no
maintenance allows your hard drive to become more and more
fragmented which will slow it down over time.

To best explain hard drive fragmentation think of your hard
drive as a file cabinet. In this cabinet there are folders
with documents (files) in them.

When you need to work on something you open the folder
containing the necessary file, pull out what you need and
put the folder back. The files go on your desk so you can
work on them.

Over time certain files don't get put back, or they get put
back in the wrong places.

When this happens on the hard drive it leads to
fragmentation. Think of defragmenting as going through all
of the files on your desk, and in the cabinet, and putting
them all back in order in the correct folders.

Just as staying in this state of disorganization would lead
to a significant loss in your own productivity, the same
thing happens to your computer.

Eventually this even causes crashes because of how scattered
all of the information gets.

Disk fragmentation can even shorten the lifespan of your
computer because your hard drive works so hard that it wears
out faster.

So the one step solution for this part of computer
maintenance, run the defragmenting tool that comes with
windows at least once every couple of weeks.

Do this by clicking Start, click All Programs, click
Accessories, click System Tools, then click Disk
Defragmenter. Choose the disk you want to defragment and
click the defragment button.

Alternatively you can get software that will automatically
keep your disk defragmented, like Diskeeper by Executive
Software.

Take care of your pc maintenance and you will continue to
enjoy the speed you experienced when you first made that
investment!

(c)Chuck Moorefield - All Rights Reserved.