Author: ccx529

No one likes crashes. In the past, an application crash often meant an operating system crash. That was due, in part, to the way operating systems were designed. There wasn't a whole lot to separate a running application from certain critical parts of the operating system, so when the application got hosed up, the OS often went down with it.

Today, the operating system is more compartmentalized than in the past, so it's possible to have an application crash without having much impact on the OS. Regardless of whether the operating system stays up or goes down, a crash is a crash, and crashes can create disk errors.

Nothing good ever comes out of a disk error, so your best bet is to get rid of them as often as possible. Set up a maintenance routine that involves checking for (and repairing) disk errors frequently – perhaps even as often as once each week. Using Disk Check regularly will help avoid crashes that occur when an application or the OS encounters a disk error, and will also help "mop up" any disk errors created during a crash that occurs for some other reason.
Make it a habit to clean disk errors whenever a crash occurs. If, for some reason, you can't mop up right away, your weekly Disk Check routine will prevent errors from having an ongoing impact.

Disk Check is a utility that comes with your Windows OS. You'll find it by right-clicking the disk you want to check and selecting Properties > Tools. You can ask Disk Check to fix disk errors and attempt to recover any data that may have gotten damaged. You can also schedule Disk Check to run the next time you start the computer. Be careful with scheduling Disk Check on startup, though, as the process can take an extraordinary amount of time.

Disk Check is actually a good "overnight" task or a task you can run when you'll be away from your computer for an extended period of time. You can also run Disk Check on other drives attached to your computer to make sure they are kept in good working order.

In following posts, I'll provide some other tips that will improve slow computer performance and help keep your computer running smoothly.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/doing-the-simple-things-can-really-add-up-pc-speed-4208097.html

Posted in: Computer Maintenance