Maintaining and managing your hard drive

Regular maintenance can keep your hard drive operating efficiently and good file management can keep your system free of unwanted files while making important files secure and easier to find.

Hard drive maintenance utility

If you are using the Windows NT operating system, you can help maintain the performance of your hard drive by regularly using Check Disk. If you are using another operating system, refer to your operating system documentation for available hard drive maintenance utilities.

Using Check Disk in Windows NT

Bad sectors are parts of a hard drive or diskette that will not hold data. A lost allocation unit is a group of sectors that has lost its place in the table that the operating system uses to locate files. Check Disk checks the hard drive for bad sectors or lost allocation units and lets you fix them.

Use Check Disk from once a week to once a month, depending on how often you use your system. Also use Check Disk if you have any hard drive problems.

To use Check Disk:

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

2Right-click the drive you want to check.

3Select Properties. The drive’s properties window opens.

4Click the Tools tab.

5At Error-checking,click Check Now. The Check Disk window opens.

6Scan the entire hard drive by selecting Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

7Click Start. Check Disk checks the drive for errors.

8Follow any on-screen instructions for completing the scan.

Maintaining and managing your hard drive

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