Protecting Your Computer

There are several things you can do to protect your computer against ordinary problems.

• Electrical Storms
• Power Surges & Outages
• ScanDisk & Defrag
  • For Windows 95 & 98
  • For Windows XP (2002)
• Link back to Chapter 2 Web sites

Electrical Storms

The most vulnerable part of your computer in a thunderstorm is a modem. Lighting can be carried over a telephone line and blow out the modem and sometimes the entire motherboard. Always unplug the modem when thunderstorms are in the area. If you will be out of town leave the modem unplugged.

Power Surges & Outages

If you live in an area where the power supply is uncertain, you may want to purchase an uninterruptible power supply or a UPS.

It is a good idea to protect your computer from power surges. There are many different types of surge protectors, some of which are virtually worthless. The best are supplied with a UPS. Very few , however, will protect 100% against a lighting strike against a house. The only sure method for protection is to unplug the computer and everything to which it is connected, e.g. printer, scanner, etc. Comparisons of protection.

ScanDisk and Defrag

ScanDisk is a disk utility that checks your disk to see if there are any bad spots (or places that would corrupt your data). If it finds any, it walls them off so no data can be stored there and reports its actions to you.

Defrag is a disk utility that improves the access speed of your disk. When a file is saved, it is saved in the first sector that is vacant. If the file is too large for that segment, the file manager assigns it to the next vacant sector on the disk. Often these sectors are not contiguous. When such a file is retrieved, the computer must spend extra time finding the sector. Defrag places all the sectors of a files in contiguous sectors.

Windows 95 and 98

Instructions for ScanDisk and Defragment are alike except for the last step. Always run ScanDisk before Defrag.

1. Click on Start > Programs > Accessories >System Tools
2. To use ScanDisk
   1. ScanDisk - Click on ScanDisk
   2. Defrag - Click on Defrag

XP (2002)

The instructions for using both ScanDisk and Defrag are similar.

1. Click on the Start button
2. Click on "My Computer"
3. Right click on the drive on which you wish to perform either ScanDisk or defrag (Use scandisk first)
4. At the bottom of the pop-up window click on Properties
5. Click on the Tools tab
6. To use Scan Disk, click on "Check Now"
7. To defrag, click on "Defragment Now." (Perform ScanDisk first.)

Last Updated: March 18, 2003

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