Gateway E3400 Hard drive maintenance utilities, Checking for bad sectors and other disk problems, Using a disk defragmenter to improve efficiency

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 utilities

By regularly using the utilities available with many operating systems, you can help maintain the performance of your hard drive. Examples include:

■ScanDisk

■Check Disk

■Disk Defragmenter

Refer to the software documentation or visit the online help system of your operating system for specific utilities available and instructions on their use.

Checking for bad sectors and other disk problems

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. Utilities such as ScanDisk and Check Disk check the hard drive for bad sectors or lost allocation units and let you fix them.

Use this type of utility from once a week to once a month, depending on how often you use your system. Also use them if you have any hard drive problems.

Using a disk defragmenter to improve efficiency

When working with files, Windows may divide the files into pieces and store the pieces at different places on the hard drive. This division of files, called fragmentation, is normal. However, to access a file, the hard drive must search for the pieces of the file and put the file back together, which can slow down your system.

A disk defragmenter brings all the separate pieces back together. Defragment your computer frequently to improve system performance.

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