Hard drive management practices

By deleting unneeded files from your hard drive and managing the space that is automatically allocated for saving certain files, you can help maintain the performance of the hard drive. We suggest that you first check your hard drive for available space, then back up important files prior to deleting unneeded files, in case you delete important files by mistake.

Checking hard drive space

In Windows NT, you can see a chart of the available hard drive space. If you are using another operating system, refer to your software documentation for available hard drive management utilities.

To check hard drive space:

1Double-click the My Computer icon on the desktop. The My Computer window opens.

2Right-click the drive you want to check.

3Select Properties. The drive’s properties window opens. The General tab shows you the available and used space on the drive.

Backing up files

Regularly backing up your files protects you from losing data and lets you keep fewer files on your hard drive. Back up old files to a large capacity disk drive or tape drive and delete the files from your hard drive. You can use the software that came with your tape backup drive or your large capacity disk drive to back up the files.

You can also back up files by running the Backup utility that came with your operating system. In Windows NT, Backup copies files to a tape drive.

To run Backup in Windows NT:

1Click Start, then select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Backup.

2Follow the on-screen instructions.

Deleting unneeded files

By deleting unneeded files from the hard drive, you free up space on the hard drive and help improve hard-drive performance. The following sections give you some simple ways to delete unneeded files.

76Managing Your System