Preventive Medicine
Tips for avoiding PC trouble.Kirk Steers
With just a little effort, you can ensure that your PC runs smoothly and save hours in downtime and troubleshooting. From backup strategies and drive housings to PC cooling and scheduled maintenance, here are six ways to keep your system on the job, and trouble off your back.
Make a one-time backup: Few of us are as diligent as we should be about backing up our system, applications, and data. No backup strategy is 100 percent effective, and most take more time to set up and use than we're willing to spend on them.
The very least you can do is to create an image of your hard drive when everything works. That way, when trouble strikes, you merely restore the pristine image--which usually takes less than 45 minutes. Images are a sure thing. You get a guaranteed fresh start, with no spyware (as long as there was none present when you created the image), no conflicts, and no hassles, although you lose all of the files you created or altered, programs you installed, and settings you changed since you created the image. Still, you'll have a working PC, even if it lacks your most recent updates.
Symantec's Norton Ghost 9 and Acronis True Image 8 restore Windows XP, Microsoft Office, and an assortment of other apps and utilities in half the time it would take to reinstall Windows, let alone the hours required to reinstall all of your programs, reload your data files manually, and reconfigure your system settings to the way you prefer them.
The downside: Norton Ghost costs $70 retail, and True Image lists for $50. While saving the image to a second hard drive is far more convenient than placing it on a DVD, it's also more expensive: An internal hard drive costs about $100 to $150, depending on its capacity and speed, and an external hard drive will set you back about $150 to $250. If you choose to store your disk image on DVD, make sure that the imaging program you use supports your make and model of optical drive. Incompatibilities between DVD drives and imaging software are common.
If you're budget-conscious and have lots of extra space on your hard drive, you can save the cost of a second drive by storing the image file on a second partition of the same drive. Of course, if your hard drive fails, you'll lose your image file. And if you don't have a second partition, you'll have to use Windows XP or a program such as Symantec's Norton PartitionMagic ($70) to create one.
To make your data easier to restore, keep your data files on a partition other than the one that holds Windows and your applications. For example, in Outlook Express, click Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder and select a folder on the data partition to store your mail in. Word, Excel, and other apps have similar options for changing their default file-storage location.
Avoid USB power crises: Digital cameras, cell phones, mice, keyboards, and other devices compete for the limited electrical power from your PC's USB ports. If the demand for power overwhelms a USB port, the bus can shut down completely. A lack of sufficient USB power may also cause problems with devices attached to the port. Windows' Device Manager lets you check the power demands on your USB ports. In Windows XP and 2000, right-click My Computer and choose Properties, Hardware, Device Manager; in Windows 98 and Me, right-click My Computer and click Properties, Device Manager.
Within Device Manager, double-click Universal Serial Bus controllers and then double-click the first USB Root Hub listing--there should be more than one. Click the Power tab (in Windows 98 and Me, it's the Power properties button); under 'Attached devices' ('Devices on this Hub' in 98, Me, and 2000), you'll see a list of the devices connected through that USB hub, along with the power requirements for each, in milliamps.
An unpowered root hub supplies up to 500 milliamps. If your root hub is overloaded or close to the 500-milliamp maximum, move some of the devices linked through it to a different root hub, or connect a self-powered USB hub to your PC.
Lock your drive letters: The drive letters that Windows assigns automatically to removable hard drives, cameras, flash media, and other external storage devices change frequently. Consequently, if an application looks for data on a particular drive letter, it may not find it.
To make a drive letter permanent in Windows XP and 2000, right-click My Computer and select Manage, Disk Management. In the bottom-right pane, right-click the bar representing the drive whose letter you want to set. Click Change Drive Letter and Paths, Change (Edit in Windows 2000). Select a drive letter from the menu, and choose OK and Yes.
In 98 and Me, right-click My Computer, select Properties, Device Manager, and then double-click the device's entry (if it lacks one, you're out of luck). Choose Settings, and in the section labeled 'Reserved drive letters', select a drive letter next to 'Start drive letter' and again next to 'End drive letter'. That device will thereafter be assigned the letter you selected.
Avoid penalties for early withdrawal: If Windows is still transferring data to or from a USB memory key or other external storage device while you're unplugging it, you may lose data. In Windows XP, 2000, and Me, double-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray (the area on the desktop near the clock) when you're ready to remove the device, and select it from the resulting list. Click Stop and then OK; a balloon will pop up to let you know when you can safely remove the hardware.
Upgrade with caution: Amazingly, many products ship with poorly tested drivers, which can cause all kinds of havoc. If you're replacing a device, reduce the likelihood of a conflict by removing the old equipment's drivers before installing the new device. Find the hardware's entry in Device Manager (see above for instructions on opening this utility). In Windows XP or 2000, right-click the old hardware's entry and select Uninstall. In Windows 98 and Me, click the entry and choose Remove.
Always finish installing a driver and then, if necessary, uninstall it and start over. Stopping mid-installation can alter files and prevent you from successfully reinstalling the device.
Monitor your hard drive's health: Over time, small sections of your hard drive may lose their ability to store data. Run a disk-diagnostic program once a month to spot these bad sectors, cordon them off so they won't be used, and move any threatened data out of harm's way. To perform a basic disk scan in Windows XP and 2000, right-click the drive's icon in Windows Explorer or in any folder window, and select Properties, Tools, Check Now. In Windows 98 and Me, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, ScanDisk, choose the drive you want to check, and click Start. The results will tell you whether your hard drive has any bad sectors.
PanteraSoft's free HDD Health constantly monitors your hard drive for signs of trouble in real time. Most PC makers include a diagnostic program that checks all the machine's hardware. If yours doesn't have one, download SiSoftware's Sandra 2005 Lite utility (free to try, $35 to keep). Another option is #1-PC Diagnostics' $10 #1-TuffTest Lite.
Kirk Steers is a PC World contributing editor.