As someone who relies on the computer for just about every aspect of my life, and having experienced the painful long hours of troubleshooting computer problems, I wanted to talk a little about some of the strategies I’ve employed to keep my computers working.
Read Your Manual
First and foremost, you need to ensure that you read your computer manual. If your manual is not readily available, then go online and enter your computer name and model number, and there will generally be a manual available online in PDF format, or at the very least the technical information that you will need, a support forum, etc. Here you need to locate what keyboard key or combination of keys that need to be selected to start your computer from a disk instead of the hard drive. This is important since most times when a computer crashes or won’t load correctly it is caused by a virus/trojan, a hard drive master boot error, an incompatible program or device, or a firmware update (i.e. windows update) that brings up the dreaded “operating system not found” message. If his happens you will either need your Windows installation CDs, a system restore disk, a virus scan repair disk, or your computer diagnostic utility tools.
To utilize one of these aforementioned repair methods, you will need to restart your computer, and you will typically have just a few seconds, wherein you will need to press ESC, F2, F12, etc. Ensure that your recovery disk (whichever one is needed) is installed in your CD/DVD drive first. This is why you will need your manual, or find the information online. My suggestion, keep your repair disks together, properly labeled, with the keyboard key that needs to be selected noted for each. If your computer has its own diagnostic tools then this is a good place to start. Typically these will allow you to scan the hard drive for bad sectors and related problems, will check RAM (random access memory), and run some other troubleshooting tests and Ideally fix any problems found.
Ok, but before we get to fixing the problem, first you need to be sure to do some necessary preventative steps. Whichever operating system you use, there will be a system tools section. For Windows 7 (which I use) I select “start”, “all programs”, “accessories”, and “system tools”. The important ones are “disk cleanup”, “disk defragmenter”, and “system restore”. In most cases when you install your operating system you will be prompted to set up a day of the week and a time for the disk cleanup and disk degragmenter tools. If you don’t have these set up on a regular schedule then I would suggest setting it up, otherwise you should do it manually approx. once a week. Note that a system that is not degragmented and cleaned-up regularly will become slower over time, and even with a very fast operating system you will experience performance issues. In some cases it might benefit you to get a good “registry editor” software, since these can remove old registry entries (useful if you often install/uninstall applications) and most will fix corrupted links. Cleaning up the registry will increase your speed by defragmenting it, and much like with the hard drive, when the registry is compacted properly it loads data faster. System restore is used to revert back to a previous “restore point”. System restore can often fix a problem wherein you’ve installed a program that keeps crashing your system, or you’ve gotten a virus/trojan that your virus scan software can’t delete or quarantine. And yes, absolutely ensure that you do have a good virus scan program installed. The one I use is Kaspersky, but McAfee, Norton, etc should work fine for most users (avoid the free ones and online options). It is important to note that for some viruses/trojans, those that get into the windows protected files, will be impossible to delete or quarantine. In this scenario the only real option is to reformat your hard drive (completely erases all data), but this is a drastic step, and not one you should do unless there are no other options. If necessary, you will need to install your operating system by using the install disk, … restart the computer with the disk in your cd/dvd drive and follow the prompts to reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows. In this regard, you will need to ensure that your system is booting from the cd/dvd drive first, not the hard drive. Of course you will need to know which keyboard key is used to open up system BIOS. Upon restart of your computer, watch for a “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD… message”. Once this loads, you will want to ensure that the boot order is selected to be CD/DVD drive first, before hard drive.
My suggestion is to always have at least one hard drive backup connected to your computer. This could be an internal hard drive (though I recommend using an external one since it is portable), or you could use an online option. Be sure to set up a regular backup option. In this case if your hard drive does fail, or your system needs to be wiped and fully restored, then you can avoid the headache of losing all of your data. One more thing here…If you’re like me, you probably have lots of valuable programs that you have either purchased online, or have CD/DVD install disks for. I suggest keeping all of the install applications for these in a folder called “installed programs”, the disks together with passwords written on them or the CD/DVD case, and for online programs where no install application is provided, then keep the link to the website where you purchased/downloaded it, with your username/password so you can go back and reinstall it from their website. This may seem rather obvious, but trust me, such details are easy to forget about until you lose all your data and need to reinstall everything.
The other important option is to create a system restore disk. Each operating system will have a slightly different way to do this, but with a bit of searching you should be able to find it. For my Windows 7 system I click “start”, “all programs”, “maintenance”, and select “create a system restore disk”. This is something that many people forget to do, but I can tell you that the system restore disk has saved me numerous times. For example, Windows 7 64bit is known to have issues with windows updates that require a reboot. What happens is that after the reboot I sometimes will get the message “operating system not found” with a message that if I’ve installed any recent hardware components to remove them. I had contacted my computer manufacturers’s support line (Lenovo) and they sent out a tech person to replace my motherboard, hard drive, and ram since they didn’t know what the problem was. After there “fix” the same problem happened again. Clearly they did not know about the issue with Window Updates, so don’t assume that so called tech support can always fix your issues. The long and short is that the system recovery disk I created quickly gets me up an running, and doesn’t require me to reformat my hard drive, or reinstall my operating system. As with the system restore disk, you should have a virus scan restore disk as well; and while I haven’t used all virus scan programs, everyone I have used has had their own recovery disk, which will be advantageous if a virus/trojan has corrupted your virus scan application.
In “control panel” there is also a “backup and restore” link that allows one to create a system image (best installed on an external hard drive), create a system repair disk, and schedule when your system files are backed up. The system repair is the same one I created previously (from programs, maintenance) so you can ignore this one. The system image is if you want to create your own system restore point. This is a good idea if you plan to install some programs that you are unsure of their compatibility with your operating system. And while yes, it does take a bit of time to do this, it can save you lots of time in the future. Note that with one of my hard drive failures (I’ve had a few) I was able to recover all my content by opening up the zipped archives of the backed up files from my external hard drive; In this section there is the option to “restore all user files” which will select the most recent restore point, or you can select a previous one (though from my experience the farther you go back in a restore point, the less chance of success you will have). It is important to note that windows will automatically create a system restore point whenever a major update is installed. If the problem you are having was caused by the windows update, then you need to select a restore point before that date.
Another important option, … go to “control panel”, “program features”, and select “view installed updates” (left column). Here you will see all the updates installed for Windows, and your other programs. Much like with removing an installed program, you could remove a recent update by selecting it, and choosing to remove it, which will revert your system back to the previous one.
And a few final suggestions to keep desktop computer system healthy and running well:
- Keep your computer cool in the summer. Your computer’s hard-drive is especially sensitive to heat (since they already run rather hot) and prolonged heat exposure can cause them to fail. Generally try to keep your room under 80 degrees. If you are concerned with your hard-drive’s health, you can purchase a hard drive health monitor which will tell you the heat it runs at (you can get the optimal range from the hard-drive manufacturer’s website), and if a sector is likely to fail.
- Keep your computer away from other electrical products with strong EM fields. An Air Conditioner or large fan next to your hard-drive would not be a good option. Do your best to keep the electrical cords apart also; having them all bound together like a rat’s nest can result in problems, … a cord separator is a good option.
- Periodically remove your computer’s tower cover and vacuum out all the dust that collects. The dust will insulate the hard-drive, motherboard chips, etc, and will result in increased heat (not good); and the more dust you have floating about, the better chance of a dust particle getting into the hard-drive.
- Don’t keep your computer tower on the floor since it is more likely to collect dust. The best place would be on a table a couple feet off of the floor with free circulating air space. And if possible, avoid smoking and having animals in your computer area.
- Turn off the monitor when you are not using your computer. This will save you money by saving electricity, and will increase the life of your monitor. If you do leave your monitor on for long periods of time be sure to have a screensaver enabled.
- Don’t turn off your computer at night or when finished with it. To be clear, the turning off/on of a computer causes a bit of shock to the system, and while it needs to be done for program installation, window updates, and other times when you are prompted, in most case it is better just to have your computer placed in “stand-by” when you plan to go back to it soon, or “sleep” or “hibernate” if you plan to be gone awhile (such as overnight).
- Always turn off your computer properly. If the system locks-up/freezes, try “Contrl-Alt-Delete” (press each each at the same time twice) and the the windows task manager should open which will allow you to shut your computer down, close a non-responsive program, etc. In this regard, there are sometimes, such as an electrical outage, when you can’t avoid a “hard” shutdown, in this case having a backup power system is a great option.
- Keep your keyboard clean. My suggestion, turn it upside down every couple of days, and watch the dust and crumbs (assuming you eat near it like I do) fall to the floor. And while there are products you can buy to blow out debris between keys, I have found that the vacuum does a nice job of cleaning it.
- Avoid installing risky programs, especially “free” programs and addons since they often include spyware, which slows down your computer.
Well, there are certainly other things you can do to keep your computer system healthy, but these are the ones which I typically employ, and know that work. Wishing you and your system a long life!
